I saw on Facebook that our friend and fellow Alpine Coach Owner Dave Hobden (Urbanescapevehicle.com) was in our area yesterday. The Xantrex inverter/charger in his coach blew and none of the 120-volt systems would power up. He was at Tekris Power Electronics, an authorized Xantrex dealer in Gilbert (about 8 miles away from us) having it replaced.

I rode the scooter over to Tekris on McQueen Avenue in Gilbert and met up with Dave. He introduced me to Robert, who was in the process of installing a new Xantrex Freedom SW 3012 inverter/charger to replace the Xantrex 2000 in Dave’s coach. The old inverter/charger circuit board was blown and internal repairs on that unit aren’t supported. The SW 3012 that Dave was getting is an upgrade. It’s a pure sine wave 3,000-watt inverter. Nice!

We chatted with Robert while he was working. He was full of information and knows just about everything about inverters and RV electrical systems. He told me that the Xantrex Freedom 458 that’s in our Alpine Coach was one of the more robust units made. It’s also rebuildable. It’s a modified sine wave 2,000-watt inverter. I’d love to have the SW 3012 that Dave now has though (minus the bill!).

Dave was planning to hang around the shop while the four-hour replacement job was being done. His wife Stilla was out shopping with Dave’s mom. Around 11:30am, we walked down the street to a taco shop and the two of us each ordered a two-fish taco plate with beans and rice.

Dave Hobden and me at the Tekris shop.

It was fun catching up a bit. We follow each other’s blogs, so we had a pretty good idea of what’s been going on. We last saw Dave and Stilla in August when we were in Oregon for the FMCA Rally in Redmond and the Alpine Coach Owners pre-rally in Portland. That’s the beauty of this nomadic lifestyle – making new friends and meeting up again down the road.

The Pantech battery I ordered from Amazon arrived yesterday. I installed it in the Verizon Jetpack and it’s back online – yaay! We won’t have to access the Internet through Donna’s phone anymore.

The temperature here reached the mid-80s yesterday. Today the forecast calls for 90 degrees. I guess it’s time to fire up the air conditioning units.