DreamStation DIY Air Filter in Water Tank

[StratCat48]

I have not exposed my DS1 to any ozone sources, so I am confident the renegade foam has not under gone any significant decomposition. I am of the opinion that any off-gassing that has occurred did so early on in its first few weeks of air exposure and usage and has tapered down to a negligible amount, if any, so I have little to no concern regarding VOC's. This leaves the possibility of black particulates that 'may' flake off of the foam that could potentially be inhaled.

I am not going to attempt removal of the foam as it entails disassembly of the unit and modifying the air housing. I would fear that if Philips chooses to repair the DS1's by replacing the air housing that an obvious modification to the unit may void a repair since the unit has been internally tampered with. (I hope those that have disassembled the machine had the forethought to wear an anti-static wrist strap or similar if handling or touching the circuit boards.)

I've given thought to an inline anti-bacterial filter, but have seen a few reports that the filter alters the air flow and users have cited the machine is not appearing to function the same as it did without a filter. The DS1 machine appears to have no compensating setting for use of an inline filter which I believe the ResMed may have. The humidity feature with a heated hose would be problematic as well with an inline filter. To filter out particulates an AB filter is overkill.

So I'm playing with an idea of adding a filter of sorts, primarily to capture particulates, by fastening a fine nylon mesh food grade straining cloth (150 micron) over the air port within DreamStation water tank. It easily passes air and will not restrict the air flow or humidity, but will capture fine particulates if any should break free from the foam. At the moment the straining cloth is affixed to the air port with rubber bands. While the cloth and rubber bands are on quite securely I'll probably look to improve upon this in some way or use the straining cloth in another manner to filter the air flow. Yes I've considered the cloth and rubber bands could fall off and looking at ideas to avoid a 'problem' .

[ApneaEddie]

Hi,

I'm wondering if you have been using this filter solution for your Dreamstation and if so, how is it going?

I'm just starting to look into filter solutions for my Dreamstation and am not seeing any solutions that look promising.

Your solution looks simple and easy to implement.

Please let me know how its going.

Thanks. -Ed

[StratCat48]

Used it for a while. It wasn't collecting anything that looked like particles of foam or anything else, so I removed it and didn't use it any more. In the end it went back to Philips when I got the replacement DS2. My DS1 was less than two years old and had never seen use of an ozone cleaner, so I have doubts there would have been any foam degradation that would have foam flaking.