Test for foam residue ?
I was thinking about the crap I found in the airbox of my dreamstation, and wondering how someone could 'test' their unit but without taking it apart (breakage hazard involved in that).
What if you removed the humidifier, and swabbed a qtip around the air port ?
Mine had black soot-ish stuff near the blower exit (the inside of that port), but I didn't try swabbing from the outside.
I would think any black that shows on a qtip would be confirmation of breakdown.
Thoughts ?
RE: Test for foam residue ?
Might not be foam. Might be normal dust/soot. The filters do not filter 100%.
RE: Test for foam residue ?
"Might be normal dust/soot"
Hmm, true. Given enough time and especially with regular intake filters, some kinda "stuff" would be there.
The black foam does seem to leave a black residue, but then it becomes subjective.. how black is it ? And, soot could be a thing, depending on environmental conditions. Perhaps a smoker in the house would end up leaving something too.
Then I thought about swabbing and (if the swab comes out black) bringing that into a lab where they could look for specified chemicals that would be a signature of foam breakdown. The problem there, is Philips has told us what they found on a new machine after approx 25 days of use. Machines that have run for 4 years might have different breakdown chems ?
I suppose, as a bare minimum, if someone was to swab and it came out nice and clean it could indicate little/no breakdown ?
RE: Test for foam residue ?
I've seen some reports of filters in CPAP's getting gray/black due to the smoke of the Western fires. It's possible that some smoke particles could have passed through the fine filter and collected inside the machine. I live on the East coast of the US and we've had smoke from the Western fires in the air which we could smell.
On your DreamStation, open the water tray lid and take a look at the silicone seal on the hinged part of the lid where it would contact the water tray. After a year and a half of use mine had a light black skim on it. No idea if it was something from the foam or some other stuff that may have been in the air and sucked through the filters, but hasn't returned after wiping it clean.
