Xantrex has just released the second video in their series about our 13+ years of experience as full-time RVers. This short video touches on some of the reasons we hit the road in the first place.
We also visited Xantrex headquarters in Burnaby, BC, Canada recently, where we hosted a meet & greet on board our RV for about 60 of their employees who were eager to see their equipment employed in a real-life situation. We spent more than two hours making great connections with the people behind our new inverter.
Xantrex came out in force to welcome us (check out the shoes)!
It was an interesting inside look at an aspect of their business that hadn’t occurred to us before. The fact that a company makes products for RVs doesn’t mean that the people who work there are RVers, or are even familiar with them… or have ever been on one before.
When you think about it, that might seem obvious (how many Boeing employees own airplanes, for example). But the thing that struck us most about our visit with Xantrex staff was the interest that so many of them had in seeing our RV, as a direct extension of their dedication to their products. They were eager to see an inverter in actual use by actual RVers, and expressed a great deal of pride in hearing us relate how we use ours… and our satisfaction with it.
Some staffers had never been on an RV before.
Our visit was planned and took place on almost no notice, so we expected very little turnout. But their dedication seems to explain why so many of them made a point of attending, even on a busy Monday. They were truly interested in seeing the products they create being used in real life by real RVers and had a ton of questions for us.
The lengthiest interactions we had were with the engineering and design team. They wanted to tease out every detail of our experience, good or bad, to learn what they might do to improve their products. We had a couple of suggestions regarding functionality that led to deep discussions among them about how to achieve certain goals. It was great to see how receptive they were.
Of course our inverter/charger installation was the big highlight.
One thing was clear above all. The people behind this equipment are extremely interested in making it all work in the best possible way in real-world applications. Which probably explains why their products are so good already.
After initially installing our new inverter/charger, we had more to do. We finished tying up the new cables we’d installed. In the photo below, you can see the black split loom (protective wire covering) we’ve added to give our job a factory-original look. But there was more to do.
Besides the inverter itself, we had two components to add to the system: an automatic generator start module, and the Xantrex Combox. The AGS is a pretty common feature, which we’d also installed into our previous Magnum inverter system. But the Combox opens a whole new world of 21st century tech that we’ve never had before.
Our installation is complete with black split loom wire protectors.
As we wanted to surprise the Xantrex team, we purposely hadn’t told them that we’d completed the Combox installation, just days before our arrival. They were floored when we stood near our RV and fired up the generator from our iPhone! We’ll be sharing more details about that in an upcoming video of our own.
As we’ve continued to test and use our new Xantrex Freedom SW inverter, we have yet to uncover a single issue. We’ve spent the past couple of months at an RV park with regular power outages, loaded up the system with heavy draws, switched randomly between shore, battery and generator power. So far, we have not had a single fault or power dropout. We’re happy campers.
Thanks so much to Xantrex, both for improving our power management, and for producing the above video for their YouTube channel. We look forward to sharing more in the series as they become available.
For more information about Xantrex products, visit their website. To read Xantrex’s article about us, view it here.
Recent & Related Videos:
- Xantrex Interviews The RVgeeks – Part 1
- Inverter Upgrade: Xantrex 3000-watt Pure Sine Wave
- What’s in our Technology Cabinet
Featured & Related Products & Services:
Cindy Miller
Sunday 20th of January 2019
Hi Guys! You and your information are awesome! Informative and thorough so that eventually I can get my head around how it works (it takes some effort sometimes!) Very timely information for me as I am in the process of replacing both chassis and house batteries and am looking into a system that will support solar (eventually) as well as make the experience of using the electrical system of the rv a background activity (once I have the solar component added). In the meantime I'm trying to decipher all the of the parts and accessories needed (wanted) to make up your system. Did you use the Xantrex 8090918 Freedom SW CONEXT COMBOX? and what did you use the Xantrex 6-to-4 Wire Network Cable Adapter for in the installation? I've watched your videos many times, and I thank you for your excellent work!
TheRVgeeks
Sunday 20th of January 2019
Hi Cindy! Thanks so much! Yes... that’s the ComBox we have. It connects into the XanBus network and to our internet router so it’s available on our local network. As for the 6-to-4 wire network adapter... that was needed because our RV originally came with a Magnum Inverter and Controller... and they use a 4-wire cable to connect the two. That set of adapters enabled us to use the existing cable, instead of having to run a new one. If you’re starting fresh, you’ll use the 6-wire cable from Xantrex to connect the two. Hope this helps!
Christopher Poirier
Friday 14th of July 2017
Hello Gentlemen, You guys are such an abundance of knowledge, I find myself looking up RVgeeks videos before I buy something just to see if you have made a video or touched on the topic before I buy. LOL :) I've been looking at different systems over the last few months on and off, and two systems have caught my attention the Xantrex and Victron. You guys are seem to be EXTREMELY thorough with your research and weigh out all options. I'm fairly certain I would be just fine with either option. With that said I would love to get your input on what options the Xantrex had that drove you to them over some of the other options on the market. Such as features, functionally, and just overall system capability, solar options and so forth. Thank you for investing your time to share your knowledge and help people. Its much appreciated!
TheRVgeeks
Friday 14th of July 2017
Hi Christopher! Thanks for the nice note and great question. As Newmar now uses Xantrex inverters in their high-end coaches, we were interested in staying within that world of typical, mainstream equipment. And we are very satisfied. There is no doubt you cannot go wrong with either Xantrex or Victron! We don't have personal experience with Victron, and it's been a while since we looked at all our options, but the one feature we know they have that we don't is full hybrid capability (the inverter can pull power from the battery bank to augment loads larger than shore power can provide). We don't typically have a need for that, so it wasn't high on our priority list.
Mohammed
Monday 28th of November 2016
Dear Gentlemen All the videos provide by you guys it's really helpful appreciate that I really learn a lot of things to let you know I am planning to buy my first rv within the next month but I am cocern about the electrical issue
I am leaving in middle East area and we are only using 240v 50hz similar to Australia and Europe for the 110v 120v 60hz it's out of services I need from you guys the support
As you know all the appliance wires .....etc. in the rv is 110v 120v 60hz so how I could use the shore power in my country and as you know if I plugged the rv with 220v 240v 50hz will damaged everything so is there is any other solution such as transformer so I could keep the exist wires and applinces in the rv as factory and use the transformer or plug the 50AMP to the transformer as 120v 60hz and the input directly to the 240v 50hz if there is something like that please support me and provide me the details ......etc. if possible
Appreciate your kind support
TheRVgeeks
Monday 28th of November 2016
Hi Mohammed! Thanks for your nice note. We have to preface our reply by saying that we are not electricians or RV technicians, so our thoughts are based only our experience as handy RVers, not professional techs.
That said, we would never consider using a North American RV in any country with 220v electric service. There are just too many things to go wrong, and there are so many wonderful RVs already set up for European and Australian systems that we can't imagine going through that. Of course others may disagree if they have the knowledge and skills to make the conversion. But it's not something we would ever consider.
John Schretlen
Wednesday 5th of October 2016
Xantrex did themselves and us RVgeeks fans both a service by meeting with you and posting videos of it. I was curious about the "Part II" in this video title so went to the Xantrex website and found a short video titled: RVgeeks visit Xantrex headquarters
On this blog's video I was impressed with the way your drone shot (0:45) makes it look like you drive a special one-of-a-kind 63' Newmar.
On the other (shorter) video I really liked the shoes lined up by the door mat. It must have been standing-room only inside! Also liked the shot of several heads poking in the basement to see where the heck you installed the inverter.
When you posted the first Xantrex video I was on my way to Burnaby for a meeting and drove by their building to have a look-see. So I know exactly where you were parked for the show-and-tell.
Xantrex sounds like one of those great RVgeeks finds - a company that makes a quality product and offers great user support. It was sure great to see so many employees come out to see your RV and to talk about RVing. I will definitely keep them on file.
TheRVgeeks
Wednesday 5th of October 2016
Hey John! Sorry we missed connecting in Burnaby. The people at Xantrex were indeed awesome. And no surprise that our polite fellow Canucks all removed their shoes. It sure did get crowded in there several time. Surely the most people by far that we've ever had on board. BTW - That drone shot at 0:45 is from our trip out to Trona Pinnacles with Nikki & Jason Wynn. And the new video that they released this afternoon was a surprise to us. Had we known, we would have held off on this post for an extra day and included it here. We'll just wait a bit, since we don't like to over-post too many times in a row. If anyone wants to see that cool short video now, it's available here: https://youtu.be/AcQMGoLtdTE
Joe Murphy
Wednesday 5th of October 2016
we are recent followers of you guys are were not aware of any health problems. 20 years of remission is great news! Your videos are of excellent quality both in content and clarity, thanks so much for them. Though some of them require more research on my part to determine just what a certain piece of equipment does, we enjoy them and learn from them. They say things happen for a reason, and I guess maybe your remission is to keep helping people like us who do not possess your talents. Thank you both for helping, we look forward to many more videos, and we would also love to meet you both on the road someday. Happy Motoring.
TheRVgeeks
Wednesday 5th of October 2016
Thanks for your nice note, Joe! It's been such a long time that we don't think about it much now, but when asked about the reasons we started RVing, that stark realization that life is short looms large! Maybe we'll catch up with you sometime... maybe in Quartzsite in late January? ;-)