Our history with Country Coach goes all the way back to 2000 with the SilverLeaf VMSII. The next year, the RVIA established RV-C, the data transmission protocol that is now an RV industry standard. Over the next few years, Country coach added more SilverLeaf components to their coaches, but retained the old data transmission protocol, J1708, through 2006 (except for the Affinity). Finally, in 2007, they switched to RV-C.
If all of the components on your Country Coach lasted forever, none of this would be noteworthy. Unfortunately, as one of our techs likes to put it, “puppies die.” Your inverter has a finite service life. If your Country Coach was made prior to that 2006/2007 dividing line, replacing that inverter can be a particularly prickly predicament (say that 3 times fast). You can’t just put an RV-C inverter in a J1708 coach. It won’t be able to communicate with the coach. So just find a J1708 inverter, right? Sure, if you can find one. Chances are, you won’t – not unless you happen to stumble across the one tech in Tumbleweed Gulch who just happens to have one on the shelf marked, “In Case of Apocalypse.” No, one way or another, you’re going to have to install a late model inverter, which means a few changes and upgrades elsewhere in your coach are going to be necessary.
The good news is that these changes are not terribly invasive. Aside from replacing two J1708 SilverLeaf modules with a single RV-C module, your control panels will need a software update, and a minor change to the wiring will be made. We have detailed documentation available to your technician, so this conversion should be a snap.
Once your Country Coach has been brought up-to-date with RV-C components, you may want to think about additional upgrades, like a newer SilverLeaf control panel. Have a look at our VMS and HMS products under the Products tab.