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Love my CPAP but... - Printable Version

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Love my CPAP but... - Mightily Oats - 06-24-2015

I'm new here. I was diagnosed last summer with Sleep Apnea after doing a sleep study, but messed-around not pursuing it until my doctor pinned me down and twisted my arm to finally get a machine. It's been about 3 months and I'm doing great on the treatment.

My untreated AHI was around 25 and I was getting O2 numbers dropping into the mid to low 80's.

Mornincoffee

Now I feel a TON better and my treated AHI is 3-4 and my O2 stays in the 90's. I'm running <5.0 cm2H2O and it seems to be working really well for me.

The machine I have is a Phillips Respironics System One 560 (60-series) with a humidifier but I only need to run the humidifier at the lowest setting.

The issue I'm having, or will have is that I'm a pretty active person. I like to backpack/hike and go camping. I also like to sail and am planning some extended sailing vacations in the near future, with an eye to eventually living aboard my own sailboat.

So I have some really tight power requirements. The 60-series Respironics machine I have now is great in my home, but even without the humidifier this thing is way too power-hungry to ever work for me long-term with my active over-night activities. Sure I have a battery solution for it but that's very heavy and non-portable and not able to last for very long without power to charge it anyhow.

A sailboat is not a great place for power-hungry electronics much less something that draws multiple amps of power all night long.

So far my insurance has been great and covered everything with my current setup with only minimal co-payments ($50 with a quarterly & $50 co-pay for ongoing supplies) I can't complain. But if I want a very portable and low-power CPAP machine I'm going to be totally out of pocket. They won't pay anything for that unfortunately.

I"ve been looking around and there doesn't seem to be much out there I have found for super low-power CPAP machines. I don't think I will need a humidfier, which is the biggest power-hog of these machines, but I'll need something that can do 5.0 cm2H2O for multiple nights without recharging while not weighing much more than what my current unit weighs, including the battery. Something that could go for a week would be ideal, but something that would charge REALLY FAST when there was power would be OK too.

When a sailboat is running its diesel engine there is a bunch of power to burn from the alternator, more than the battery bank can take usually as it is charging back up -but that might only be for an hour or less a day, sometimes MUCH less depending on the boat configuration and the crew. When I'm backpacking I also don't want to have to sit around for half of the day at a power outlet while my CPAP battery charges.

Are there other people out there who have found any really nice, light, low-power demand machines that might fit for what I'm looking for? Am I asking for the impossible? I don't mind spending some money out of pocket, but I don't want to buy something that ends up not being enough of an improvement over what I have to warrant the cost.

Right now all I have is a 12v power adapter and a sealed 12AH gel powersport lead-acid battery with a fast charger. It's a pretty heavy system and only good for a night or so, and doesn't charge all that fast. I really need a better solution than this for the long run.


RE: Love my CPAP but... - Starrbelie - 06-24-2015

http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/attachment.php?aid=1553

That is a link to a spreadsheet that OldGuide put together of portable battery options.

This is something I am interested in myself. I do a lot of kayaking and hang camping!

Hope this helps!
Starr


RE: Love my CPAP but... - Terry - 06-24-2015

I can't help with the others, but for the sailboat, you can mount any of a number of inexpensive 12v wind turbines that will keep your battery charged.


RE: Love my CPAP but... - trish6hundred - 06-24-2015

Hi Mightily Oats,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
Hang in there for more answers to your questions about battery power.
Much success to you as you continue your CPAP therapy.


RE: Love my CPAP but... - Mightily Oats - 06-24-2015

(06-24-2015, 03:00 PM)Starrbelie Wrote: That is a link to a spreadsheet that OldGuide put together of portable battery options.

Thanks! That looks like a great start.


Terry, I'll be sailing at first with groups of folks on bareboat rentals and flying in and out of the Caribbean. I really won't be able to expect to get much power all for myself.

Even with my own boat my power demands are going to be such that while I expect to have a decent solar array and a wind turbine I'll still be needing to conserve as much as possible. Radios, navigation equipment, and other things like lights and power for other items are always going to be an issue, outstripping demand if I let my guard down.

Getting something that uses the least amount of power is high on the list of priorities. I might even want to have a microwave and a minimal fridge on board since we plan to be fully off-grid and never need to be paying for docking in a slip. I want to run the engine as close to never as possible.


RE: Love my CPAP but... - lmoretti - 06-24-2015

I'm wondering where you get the "Multiple Amps" thing from. If you can use the humidifier in pass-over mode, a really low setting like 5cm the PR System One 60 should only draw about 0.5-0.8Ahr from the research I've seen. The current "recommended" 2 day battery seems to be the 12AHr LiFePO4, but there is active discussion about this and we're still waiting for more active "use" reports.

I haven't ordered mine yet as I don't have a camping trip scheduled soon.


RE: Love my CPAP but... - Mightily Oats - 06-24-2015

(06-24-2015, 03:41 PM)lmoretti Wrote: I'm wondering where you get the "Multiple Amps" thing from. If you can use the humidifier in pass-over mode, a really low setting like 5cm the PR System One 60 should only draw about 0.5-0.8Ahr from the research I've seen. The current "recommended" 2 day battery seems to be the 12AHr LiFePO4, but there is active discussion about this and we're still waiting for more active "use" reports.

I haven't ordered mine yet as I don't have a camping trip scheduled soon.

This is the problem when talking Amps and AH versus Watts and Watt-hours.

My mistake for being unclear. I'm an electrician and should know better. I was speaking of a 12v nominal DC ship's power battery bank.

An amp at 12v != an amp at 120v due to Ohm's law...

My System One UL/CE nameplate on the bottom of the unit gives a system power requirement of 5.0-6.7A @ 12vDC You can move that decimal point over to the left one digit for the amps if you move the decimal point the other way for the voltage -more or less if you don't include losses for down-converting voltage and rectification/switching from AC to DC through the power supply. That can be pretty lossy in itself.

Unfortunately a lot of electronics and electrical equipment manufacturers avoid talking in Watt-Hours because they can fudge things a little to their own benefit to make themselves look a little better when talking about 12v (nominal) since 12v can be interpreted differently depending on how you want your final numbers to turn out looking like. An amp is a pretty worthless measurement if you don't know the system voltage. But a Watt is a Watt regardless of the referenced voltage.




RE: Love my CPAP but... - Mark Douglas - 06-24-2015

I lived aboard off and on for 3 yrs down island and will do so again just as soon as another boat chooses me.
There are a lot of things I would give up before my full size machine. If you never ever wanna crank the engine a Honda
inverter genny is impossible to beat. Idling your auxiliary is just a bad idea unless you have a ginormous watermaker to load it up. You will want wind and solar as it isn't always sunny and the wind doesn't always blow. Of course if you are crewing or bareboating that is another can of worms.
I wonder if you can be the guy everyone wants aboard by bringing your own Honda?


RE: Love my CPAP but... - Adoniscmj - 06-25-2015

(06-24-2015, 02:51 PM)Mightily Oats Wrote: I'm new here. I was diagnosed last summer with Sleep Apnea after doing a sleep study, but messed-around not pursuing it until my doctor pinned me down and twisted my arm to finally get a machine. It's been about 3 months and I'm doing great on the treatment.

My untreated AHI was around 25 and I was getting O2 numbers dropping into the mid to low 80's.

Mornincoffee

Now I feel a TON better and my treated AHI is 3-4 and my O2 stays in the 90's. I'm running <5.0 cm2H2O and it seems to be working really well for me.

The machine I have is a Phillips Respironics System One 560 (60-series) with a humidifier but I only need to run the humidifier at the lowest setting.

The issue I'm having, or will have is that I'm a pretty active person. I like to backpack/hike and go camping. I also like to sail and am planning some extended sailing vacations in the near future, with an eye to eventually living aboard my own sailboat.

So I have some really tight power requirements. The 60-series Respironics machine I have now is great in my home, but even without the humidifier this thing is way too power-hungry to ever work for me long-term with my active over-night activities. Sure I have a battery solution for it but that's very heavy and non-portable and not able to last for very long without power to charge it anyhow.

A sailboat is not a great place for power-hungry electronics much less something that draws multiple amps of power all night long.

So far my insurance has been great and covered everything with my current setup with only minimal co-payments ($50 with a quarterly & $50 co-pay for ongoing supplies) I can't complain. But if I want a very portable and low-power CPAP machine I'm going to be totally out of pocket. They won't pay anything for that unfortunately.

I"ve been looking around and there doesn't seem to be much out there I have found for super low-power CPAP machines. I don't think I will need a humidfier, which is the biggest power-hog of these machines, but I'll need something that can do 5.0 cm2H2O for multiple nights without recharging while not weighing much more than what my current unit weighs, including the battery. Something that could go for a week would be ideal, but something that would charge REALLY FAST when there was power would be OK too.

When a sailboat is running its diesel engine there is a bunch of power to burn from the alternator, more than the battery bank can take usually as it is charging back up -but that might only be for an hour or less a day, sometimes MUCH less depending on the boat configuration and the crew. When I'm backpacking I also don't want to have to sit around for half of the day at a power outlet while my CPAP battery charges.

Are there other people out there who have found any really nice, light, low-power demand machines that might fit for what I'm looking for? Am I asking for the impossible? I don't mind spending some money out of pocket, but I don't want to buy something that ends up not being enough of an improvement over what I have to warrant the cost.

Right now all I have is a 12v power adapter and a sealed 12AH gel powersport lead-acid battery with a fast charger. It's a pretty heavy system and only good for a night or so, and doesn't charge all that fast. I really need a better solution than this for the long run.
I don't know if anyone has suggested a Z1 Auto but it is the smallest and most portable CPAP made. It also has a battery that you can get with it.



RE: Love my CPAP but... - lmoretti - 06-25-2015

As an electrician, you should know that a motor takes a power spike to spin up, and that draw number also includes the humidifier plate.

People on the board who are EEs have hooked the machines (without humidifier) up to meters and measured the average power draw as somewhere between 0.5 and 1.0A @12vdc, averaged over a multi-hour period. The draw depends on the pressure it has to maintain: higher the pressure, the higher the draw.