{"id":1422,"date":"2026-10-31T12:50:55","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T18:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/2026\/10\/31\/i-had-an-energy-vampire\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T12:50:55","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T18:50:55","slug":"i-had-an-energy-vampire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/2026\/10\/31\/i-had-an-energy-vampire\/","title":{"rendered":"I Had an Energy Vampire!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Loose bus bar bouncing on the power button.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Had my first troubleshooting experience in the Airstream and it went pretty well. At least a happy ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TLDR<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A distribution bar holding 3 heavy duty (I\u2019m talking about cable thick enough to handle 300 DC amps) cables worked loose and was bouncing around on top of the Inverter, right where the power button is. This button being \u201con,\u201d overrides the power button located on the remote-control panel. The inverter was always on. A vampiric draw of current while in storage that would eventually drain the battery in a matter of days. I mounted that bar over and away from the inverter. Turned the power button off on the inverter. Now it will turn off at the remote-control panel. Both problems solved. Both? But I haven\u2019t talked about the other quirk here in this Too Long Didn\u2019t Read paragraph.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Problem(s)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After sitting in the undercover storage for a week, the battery would be very low. Did I turn off the main 12-volt switch? Check. Something is wrong. Not a problem while camping since the battery stays charged via solar\/generator\/DC-to-DC converter\/truck alternator. In fact, while camping I didn\u2019t even notice this was a problem. I had an energy vampire!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Side problem? Energy-wise, I can afford keeping the inverter on while camping. Not a big enough power drain to make a difference one way or another. Driving down the road, I would hear the microwave turn-on beep. You know. That beep the microwave makes once power is applied to it, just prior to having to set the clock on it. Only experienced this while hitting bumps on the road. I figured it must be a loose connection somewhere. Perhaps even in the inverter itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Touch Screens<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem with adapting to new technology is that common tasks such as turning on the bathroom light is software driven<\/em>. There is no physical switch to turn a light on. Have to piss real bad? Rush into the bathroom, close the door, and realize that you can\u2019t turn on the light in there. GODDAMNIT! I\u2019ve got to run to the touch panel and turn it on first! I\u2019m getting used to this change of practice. All lights are controlled through the Firefly Multiplex System<\/a>. Starting the generator? Touch the panel. Turn on\/off the water pump? Panel. There is a 7-inch touchscreen in the front of the coach and a smaller 5-inch panel in the bedroom. The only physical switch is the bathroom fan. Therefore, if there is a light that won\u2019t turn on, the problem could be a traditional power problem, or it could be a software glitch. Controlling the Timberline 2.0<\/a> furnace and water heater is essentially the same \u2013 a touchscreen panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inverter Panel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nestled between the Firefly and Timberline touchscreen display panels, sits the remote panel for the Xantrex Freedom XC<\/a> 3000 watt (6000 watt surge) inverter. Kudos to Airstream for selecting this premium piece of equipment. High. Quality. Shit. The more I dig into the guts of what makes this RV tick, the more impressed I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This panel is not a touchscreen. A standard LED display with push buttons. During my troubleshooting I learned that the panel appears to be the same panel that is flush mounted on top of the inverter. Being hidden as the inverter is, this panel up front is just an extension, or remote-control. Also, as I would eventually learn, the power button on the actual inverter takes precedence over the remote panel. In other words, if the button on the inverter is off, you can then turn the unit on or off via the remote panel. However, if the inverter power button is on, then one cannot turn the inverter off via the remote panel. And this was the crux of my problems. Both the battery drain and the random cycling of the microwave circuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After our last camping trip, I noticed that the inverter would not shut off. The display dims after a certain amount of time, so it\u2019s not like I\u2019d notice the display on and say, \u201chey, why isn\u2019t that turning off?\u201d Nope. I just assumed it was off. But I noticed my microwave clock still on after I thought I had turned off the inverter. I googled reasons why my Xantrex Freedom XC would not turn off and it came back with an answer. The one I described in the above paragraph. I then googled where my inverter was located and google provided that info as well. I had to remove the rear access panel under the bed on the driver\u2019s side, as well as the shelf of that same area. That is when I saw the inverter and<\/em> the problem. A distribution bar that connects 3 large cables, about an inch thick each, was just laying there on top of the inverter, directly on that power button. You can see this in the picture above. I could not locate where this bus bar should\u2019ve been mounted. I did find a nice location to mount it to the frame of that area. You can see my mounting job in the picture below. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
No more bouncing!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three heavy-duty cables bounced on the power button, causing the inverter to stay alive in storage, giving birth to an energy vampire. More on my corner!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[227],"tags":[719,740,244,720,297,741],"class_list":["post-1422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rv-repair","tag-airstream","tag-energy-vampire","tag-inverter","tag-rangeline","tag-troubleshooting","tag-xantrex-freedom-xc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/img_3437.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilweb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}