Another Episode - "As The RV Turns" - The Great Inverter/Charger Mystery

This morning I got a rather panicked call from Jacob the repair guy. He said "I wanted to charge the batteries for you prior to you picking up the coach.  They won't charge. Can you tell me how your Xantrex remote works perhaps I shut something off I shouldn't have." He went on to say that the batteries were at 36% and have not come up overnight.

I walked him through the settings on the Xantrex remote and what lights should be lit on the inverter/charger in the basement. He told me that the remote will not show "charge" and that the inverter/converter is not showing that it is charging the batteries either.   So, I went to the Xantrex website and downloaded the manual for my inverter/charger which is a Xantrex 458-20. I called Jacob back with the reset procedure for the 458.  He said he would do it and call back

My regular readers know that on our first trip to Texas my surge protector bit the dust and I wired around it until we could purchase a new unit.  Since our slides were dealing us fits I figured we had taken a surge to the coaches electrical system and now the results of these surges were making themselves known one at a time. While waiting for my call back from Jacob I explored the cost of refurbishing the existing inverter/charger as well as the cost of a new one. Repair costs were about $600 and a new unit was just short of $850.

Feeling frustrated and disappointed I resigned myself to yet another costly repair.  Just then I received a call from Jacob. He said he wanted to check all of the fuses before he reset things and found the breaker for the inverter/charger tripped. He reset it and all was good, it is now charging.

As an aside, as my regular readers may remember, the day before we returned home from my brother in laws we had a very severe thunderstorm roll through Rio Vista, TX.  A big lightening strike cut power throughout Rio Vista. Our coach was plugged in at the time. When we awoke the next morning we started our travel packing as usual. We didn't check breakers because our generator was running and we had power even though the city was dark.  I am guessing that the breaker popped during that lighting strike.

Anyway, we will be getting the coach either tomorrow morning or Monday morning. The ordeal has ended. Now for the bill,

Shiver!