I drove into Suffolk today to see if the NAPA store might have the right fuses for the battery monitor. They are tiny 250V 5A fuses. Nope. The salesman pondered the situation for a bit and gave me instructions to get to an RV parts place outside of town. I was doubtful they would have the fuses, but I made a note of the driving instructions just in case. Then, he gave me the name of a bigger auto parts store in Portsmouth. And then, the light bulb came on over his head!

Radio Shack.

As soon as those words came out of his mouth, I knew that would be the answer. I asked where the nearest one was, and it turned out to be right next to the big Dollar Tree! Why I never noticed that is beyond me.

I spent some time going through the well organized fuse drawers at Radio Shack and found one bag containing four of the fuses. Yes! I also picked up a 50% off set of two 12V outlets for the bedroom.

I got in and installed two new fuses, but the monitor did not turn on. 🙁

It’s been bitter cold today (just a couple of degrees below freezing and overcast), but the weather should be nice tomorrow. So the plan is to remove the battery monitor connections, make sure that all the lugs are properly attached to the wires, and then reassemble the whole thing. If that doesn’t work, I guess the next step is to contact Xantrex and ask them how I can verify that I irreparably screwed up a very expensive piece of equipment. 🙁

I am also going to run some tests as suggested by Croft in a comment made on my last post.

Even though my system is not running at 100%, I feel comfortable leaving on Sunday. Worse case scenario, I can attach the little inverter directly to the battery and run an extension cord from it to the computer. Otherwise, everything else is running nicely. The kinks will work themselves out, I am confident of it!