School on a Bus (a.k.a. Radical Sabbatical)

There are a few critical items that make an RV a home away from home. One of those is having lights and 120 volt plug-ins for computers and the such – without which life would be a more primitive affair. This requires a bank of batteries, an inverter, and a generator. If any of these components is misbehaving, life is more difficult. Especially since we boondock at least 4-5 days per week. I had already changed out the generator in Missouri and the batteries in North Carolina. Now it was time for the inverter to act up.

I have a Xantrex inverter that was purchased new before the trip and is still on warranty. Unfortunately, the internal fan stopped working and so the inverter would shut down due to overheating. This meant that the batteries would not receive an adequate charge and were constantly being drained lower than necessary. To give Xantrex credit, they did help me diagnose the problem. Then they suggested I take it in to a certified service shop. Xantrex is a northwest manufacturer. Service shops are almost non-existent on the east coast. I also couldn’t afford to take the inverter out and leave it somewhere waiting for a shop to order parts and fix it. When I started asking Xantrex to send me a replacement fan so I could fix it myself, they stopped responding.

That’s when I knew I had to take matters into my own hands. A trip to Radio Shack for a new fan and I was ready to open up the inverter. The inside of the inverter is somewhat like a PC with circuit boards and a fan for cooling (no hard drive of course). However, there was no way the generic fan from Radio Shack was going to fit. So I had the great idea of bolting it on to the outside of the case and running the wires from the old fan through the case. It looked a little strange but it worked. Life is now back to normal.