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WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out
#61
RE: WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out
The 12v marine batteries and inverter are not a very elegant solution to providing backup power. A better way to do this is to use a pure sine wave converter such as the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD Pure Sine Wave UPS. They come in various capacities and prices, the most powerful is 900w and costs $188 at the "big store" online. Plug in your CPAP to the Cyberpower, plug the Cyberpower into the wall and you are done. Easy to move around, enough power for the night, no tangle of cables to fool around with. It stays charged all the time, makes no noise and automatically supplies power if your AC goes off. Simple.
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#62
RE: WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out
If you're going to use a single 12 volt deep cycle "marine" battery for CPAP, it's much better to have a 12 volt adapter for that specific CPAP machine, rather than run your 12 volt power through an inverter in order to step it to 110 volts so you can use your standard 110 power brick. You're always going to loose a significant percentage of your power in going through an inverter, perhaps as much as 20% in some cases. That's kind of a waste of energy that will drain your battery faster.

Now, if you've got a really good high-wattage 12 volt source (numerous solar panels for instance) with a huge battery bank with a high-wattage inverter that you already use for other purposes, well, than that's a different story.
SuperSleeper
Apnea Board Administrator
www.ApneaBoard.com


INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.


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#63
RE: WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out
(03-05-2012, 04:55 PM)rriley Wrote: The 12v marine batteries and inverter are not a very elegant solution to providing backup power. A better way to do this is to use a pure sine wave converter such as the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD Pure Sine Wave UPS. They come in various capacities and prices, the most powerful is 900w and costs $188 at the "big store" online. Plug in your CPAP to the Cyberpower, plug the Cyberpower into the wall and you are done. Easy to move around, enough power for the night, no tangle of cables to fool around with. It stays charged all the time, makes no noise and automatically supplies power if your AC goes off. Simple.


Maybe I'm missing something? It's not the wattage of a backup power supply that matters, but the amp-hour rating of it's batteries. Please see my post HERE on figuring how long a lead-acid battery will last and how to figure what amp-hour rating on a battery system you're going to need. From what I've read, this UPS you mentioned is powered by two 8.5 amp-hour batteries, correct? Most CPAPs without humidifiers draw about 1 amp per hour. Add a humidifier and that can go up to 3 amps per hour or more (depending upon several factors).

I'm assuming those UPS batteries are maintenance-free sealed lead-acid like other similar UPS backups.

Those two batteries add up to 17 amp hours and the formula is amp hours x 90% / hourly amperage draw, which will give you your max hours that will run your battery down to zero percent charge... but you should never run a lead-acid battery that far down (60 % max). So with this Cyberpower UPS, the formula would be:

8.5 AH X 2 batteries = 17 total amp-hours

Then, it's 17 AH x 90% (Peukert's Equation factor) = 15.3 AH remaining. Now if your CPAP draws 1.0 amp per hour, that would give you 15.3 hours of operation time, but there's a problem - that will take your battery down to zero percent charge... you can really only use up to 60% of a lead acid battery, otherwise you'll have a dead doorstop if you do that a few times. So, that supposed 15.3 hours has to be reduced to give you the maximum safe discharge level... 15.3 X 60% = 9.48 hours in operating time... okay for one night on backup power, perhaps, now you have only 40% charge remaining. While doing this will not kill your battery immediately, it will drastically reduce battery lifespan... Ideally, for optimum battery lifespan, it's recommended that you don't discharge a lead-acid battery down below a 70% charge. This means that you really only can use 30% of your total capacity if you want to extend battery life. This means that with the above system, you can only run your 1 amp-hour CPAP draw for 4.59 hours without risking poor battery lifespan. Now, add to this factor a heated humidifier, and it gets worse... assuming you have a heated humidifier where both the CPAP and humidifier draw 3 amps per hour total, your ability to use this backup source for powering your system goes down to 1.45 hours... not a lot of time at all.

So, even a high quality UPS like the one you wrote about cannot power a CPAP with heated humidifier for an entire night of sleep, unless you're willing to destroy the batteries within the UPS. Alternatively, a standard marine deep cycle battery like you get from the local Wal-Mart will power a CPAP easily for several nights before a charge is necessary... many of them are rated at over 100 amp-hours.

Now if you purchase one of those very expensive CPAP backup power systems that use a Lithium Ion Battery, then those are designed to handle a deeper discharge with no risk to battery lifespan... but I'm pretty sure most UPS systems come with lead-acid batteries, not Lithium Ion batteries.

I dunno, maybe I'm wrong here. Dont-know





SuperSleeper
Apnea Board Administrator
www.ApneaBoard.com


INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.


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#64
RE: WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out
Having almost suffocated last night from a power outage, I have configured a power backup kit that most folks with rudimentary electrical skills can cobble together. A target system outputting 12 VDC is desired due to simplicity, low cost, and not having to work with high voltage systems. Also, 12V (if your device allows this input power) is most efficient, as mentioned previously.

Shopping list:
* Laptop power supply (usually several on Ebay) with 16VDC/2.8A output
* Mini-Box picoUPS-100 12V DC micro UPS system / battery backup system by Mini-Box (found one on Amazon) board. This controls charging the battery and providing consistent 12V output to CPAP
* Sealed 18A/Hr deep cycle battery. Lead-acid type (important).
* Small box for the UPS board - open w/some larger-holed screen for vent.
* cheap voltage tester to check polarities
* Wiring. You'll have to consider the power connector hardware to hook up the CPAP. Radio Shack has a good selection of stuff.

I plan to begin my project ASAP. If you would like more tech help, I can work with you. This system will easily provide plenty of nightly power for your blower (NOT the humidifier! - plug that directly into the AC outlet).

The total kit should total well under $150 and outperform most of what is currently on the market by a significant margin at a huge discount.

Sleep well!
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#65
RE: WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out
I have an anxiety attack when I cannot use my CPAP due to power outages, I usually don't sleep at all when it happens. I don't even try.

I know that there are battery packs available for a lot of machines though. I should look into getting one. Another option is I am going to pick up a 120 converter for my car and if all else fails I would sleep there.

If we ever were completely knocked off the grid. I think that a lot of us would be back in the stone age. It could happen some day. But I try not to think about it.

I highly doubt you would have suffocated. There are vent systems built into the mask that although it might feel like it, you were never in danger of asphyxiation. It WOULD make you uncomfortable enough to arouse and take the mask off. But they are designed with these situations in mind.
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#66
RE: WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out
(03-05-2012, 04:55 PM)rriley Wrote: The 12v marine batteries and inverter are not a very elegant solution to providing backup power. A better way to do this is to use a pure sine wave converter such as the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD Pure Sine Wave UPS. They come in various capacities and prices, the most powerful is 900w and costs $188 at the "big store" online. Plug in your CPAP to the Cyberpower, plug the Cyberpower into the wall and you are done. Easy to move around, enough power for the night, no tangle of cables to fool around with. It stays charged all the time, makes no noise and automatically supplies power if your AC goes off. Simple.

I read a review that said it only ran one man's CPAP for 2.5 hrs. That's not very long.
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#67
RE: WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out
RWRPSGT : Have you viewed this thread?
http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-...up-problem

As for the 2 hrs, the user must have had the humidifier on. Or the battery was faulty. Or not charged completely.
PaulaO

Take a deep breath and count to zen.




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#68
RE: WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out
(05-09-2012, 03:05 PM)PaulaO2 Wrote: RWRPSGT : Have you viewed this thread?
http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-...up-problem

As for the 2 hrs, the user must have had the humidifier on. Or the battery was faulty. Or not charged completely.

Ah Paula02 you beat me to it. Thanks! I was going to tie my thread in here.

The system I made does work well. I think I have about 80 bucks tied up in it. The real key to mitagating battery drain is getting rig of the humidifier and AC adapter. The humidifier pulls more juice and I have read that you will cut your battery time in half by using the AC adapter. Using SuperSleeper's math that really knocks the hell out of a UPS.

The first time I camped I went into the woods with two fully charged APC UPS 1000's. I was able to get 3.5 hrs out of each one with humidifier and AC adapter. Then they were both 100% drained. Thats a lot of dead weight to carry (80lbs?) If not it felt like it. Im glad we were car to ground camping and not having to carry our gear too far.

My new rig has two batteries (I use one for the cpap) no humidifier and I use a 12v cord. No AC adapter. I have confirmed that I can get 8 hours sleep from one battery (2 nights sleep for me). Thats with my cpap pressure at 16. I had juice left but didnt want to drain the batt any more. I have a second battery for other 12v devices or to run the cpap longer. You could also wire the batteries in parallel... ok, read the post for all that info.

As far as the battery life goes, I figure the batteries I bought were around 25 bucks. The LiIon batts were 300 bucks. Thats a lot of lead acid batteries. I'll just buy another one thanks. I did find that I could get LiIon from a chineese manufacturer for 85.00. I think they were 7.5ah. I had to order 10 though. Maybe a group purchase from the folks here?

When the lights went out before I couldnt go to sleep. I would go to work or walmart and walk around. Now I can sleep. Camping was a joke. Now I can camp without feeling like I am taking a ton of extra crap with me. Just a small marine battery box with all my gear. My post has pictures

We are camping this weekend and the next too. I cant wait.:grin:



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#69
RE: WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out
Hi
Maybe you are interested that I have really good experiences with a Litium-Polymer battery that gives 56Wh (for my old Respironics M thingy it was not enough sometimes (rare), but with my new Philips/Respironics Series One it is very good).
I've bought it in Switzerland, you will just have to google "Powerbox SL-2000 offgridsystems" - I know it is really expensive (nearly 300USD), but I use it very often (in flight and bus travel) and also for phone charge, lights, etc. because it has USB.
(And the battery is small and only 400g=0.881849049 pounds heavy or shall i say lightWink)
regards
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#70
RE: WARNING to CPAP Users: PREPARE for the Unexpected - When the power goes out
Bump2

Bumping this thread as a reminder:

Hurricane Season is coming soon
.

Tornado and Thunderstorm season is coming soon.

Earthquakes can happen at any time.

Terrorist attacks can happen any time.


Wide-spread power outages can happen any time.

It's better to be prepared and not need your preps than to need preps and not have them.

This has been an Apnea Board public service announcement. oldman

SuperSleeper
Apnea Board Administrator
www.ApneaBoard.com


INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.


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