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Oxygen concentrator in a cabin/power requirements - RainbowFish - 06-05-2022
Hello! I am looking for some advice re minimum power requirements for an O2 concentrator. I presently use APAP and am borderline for supplemental O2 at night where I live at 7000 ft in altitude. My family has a cabin at 9000 ft where I would like to stay overnight, but its only power is a solar panel/golf cart battery set up that barely works the K-cup machine. So, I am committed to buy a power station battery to use both there and as backup for power outages at home for the APAP, but from what I can glean from my research oxygen concentrators are power hogs.
The O2 concentrators I have are a Respironics Everflo and a Caire Freestyle Comfort portable (the latter I inherited from my mom who needed O2 during the day, and I think it only pulses). At least at 7000 ft my O2 requirements are minimal - maybe 1 liter - but I have not tried 9000 ft yet.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience!
RE: Oxygen concentrator in a cabin/power requirements - clownbell - 06-06-2022
My wife has a DeVilbiss stationery oxygen concentrator and the owners manual says that the unit uses 275 Watts @ 1 .2 LPM & below, and 310 watts as an overall average. I would assume that if power usage is nigher if you are using 4-5 LPM. It may be worthwhile to contact the manufacturer and ask for power requirements at various whole-number settings. That may provide some data that will be significant when you purchase a backup batter.
Another idea: the folks at the Oxygen Concentrator Store (you can guess the URL but I can't post it here) may be of help.
RE: Oxygen concentrator in a cabin/power requirements - RainbowFish - 06-06-2022
Thank you for the suggestion! I will get in touch with them.
RE: Oxygen concentrator in a cabin/power requirements - RainbowFish - 09-10-2022
As a follow-up, I took your advice and purchased a used Respironics SimplyGo from them. It was an excellent experience. I love the unit's portability and the solar panel seem to handle it easily. From my research, it does appear that the power usage is dependent on the flow rate and seems fairly consistent across machines
RE: Oxygen concentrator in a cabin/power requirements - clownbell - 09-10-2022
Thanks Fish. It was my guess that power requirements would be pretty consistent across machines, but then again I am not an engineer and I don't have a good understanding of physics. Glad it worked for you. We have a cabin too and having another concentrator would mean this 7 year old guy wouldn't have to schlepp a concentrator from home to cabin and back. Maybe a used Respironics Simply Go would be a good idea. Thanks again.