Remote control for M Series Auto Aflex

[feeling_better]

Does anybody know of a way to remotely (with wires and switches) 'push' the ramp switch and/or turn on/off the above machine? I keep my machine at the foot of my bed to reduce noise (I am particularly sensitive to noise), and so cannot push those buttons without getting up

BTW, what happens if you unplug the machine while it is running? Does it lose any data? Will it combine the data before and after unplug/replug for one night? If there is no problem with that, one can easily insert a power switch to the whole machine near me.

What exactly are those 'sessions' indicated in the above machine? After last night, my number of sessions (7 day avg) went down from 7 to 6!! How is this possible? Was that because of the 'buggy data loss' of M Series that people have mentioned elsewhere in the forum?


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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): Ramp, Power

[6PtStar]

This has been discussed before and to my knowledge no one ever came up with a workable way of doing it. Some of it was to just turn it on from a remote location but the ramp button would be a even bigger problem because you can use Auto Start or the switch on a surge protector to turn it on. I have a problem with turning it off because I don't want to use the Auto Off because it messes up the leak data.

If you turn the power off it will show as a seperate event. The compliance for events is 4 hours. If you use it for an hour or two and unplug it, it will show an event that is non compliant. By the same token if you use it for 4 hours and unplug it then plug it back in and use it for another 4 hours it will compute 2 days of compliance. Unpluging the card and pluging it back in does the same thing.

The only idea I ever came up with was to strap one of those little selinoids out of a remote controlled car to it and use the remote to activate it. Not exactually hi tech.

Good luck!

Jerry

[feeling_better]

Jerry, Thank you. If I open it up, it would be possible to simply add some wires and a set of switches across the three buttons at the remote end of the wires. I am a bit reluctant to open it up because there may be some problem with warranty, and I am only about two weeks into the whole cpap environment

You have any speculation as to why my avg session went down to one less than even the number of days of the 7 day average? (No button pushing, no power on off, nothing last night.)

[6PtStar]

You have any speculation as to why my avg session went down to one less than even the number of days of the 7 day average? (No button pushing, no power on off, nothing last night.)

With no power off or if you did not get up for over 1 hour the only thing I can think of is that the data off the screen is not very accurate. When I got the program and the card reader I found descrepencies between them fairly regular.

Maybe some of the Guru's can jump in here with a better idea.

Jerry

[feeling_better]

This has been discussed before and to my knowledge no one ever came up with a workable way of doing it. Some of it was to just turn it on from a remote location but the ramp button would be a even bigger problem because you can use Auto Start or the switch on a surge protector to turn it on. I have a problem with turning it off because I don't want to use the Auto Off because it messes up the leak data.

If you turn the power off it will show as a seperate event. The compliance for events is 4 hours. If you use it for an hour or two and unplug it, it will show an event that is non compliant. By the same token if you use it for 4 hours and unplug it then plug it back in and use it for another 4 hours it will compute 2 days of compliance. Unpluging the card and pluging it back in does the same thing.

The only idea I ever came up with was to strap one of those little selinoids out of a remote controlled car to it and use the remote to activate it. Not exactually hi tech.

Good luck!

Jerry

Some time ago when I was starting on the M-series auto, I had asked the question at the beginning of this thread. This is a follow up of my experiment and results.

Yesterday, I inserted a power on off switch in the AC power side of my M-series, with the switch reachable from where I sleep. Yes, you can turn off/on the machine ok with the switch; but when I tried to download the data this morning, the two sessions of last night, both of which I had stopped by turning off the AC power, were not available on the card I had turned on the machine for a few minutes and stopped it normally by pushing the blue lighted button before starting my usual therapy. Only that short duration data was available on my card this morning. [I regularly erase all data in the card when I download every morning.]

I do not know if this was one of those occasionally occurring notorious data loss of M-series or if you turn the AC side off you would always miss data. If any body can confirm or contradict this from experience, I would be interested in knowing it. Thank you.

[Guest]

I don't know how it could write data to the card with the power off, so that may be a normal event. It may be on the display?? It may be the data is on the card but with an abend? which is why the session count is reduced? Until it is officially overwritten? I am not a programmer so not really sure.

I know if there is a power failure with the machine on, it is programmed to power up when the power comes back on.

I haven't explored it but think if done correctly the leak data should be corrected when using "auto off" feature. Perhaps you can confirm or deny this. Auto on is always on and cannot be turned off. That is THE reason it comes back on AFTER a power interruption. I think I would turn on the auto OFF feature rather than mess with my warranty. After the warranty, well that is another story.

Why the sessions misbehave like that I think is poorly written firmware but that is just my opinion.

[ractar28]

I found something interesting with my machine (same as yours). If I put the mask on with the machine off, the danged thing starts up automatically. I have a routine of trying to put the mask on while the machine is off, getting a good seal, then applying air.

Aflex is on, aflex setting is 2, it's in "auto-adjusting mode". If you don't have the same results, let me know and I'll try to figure out if I've got something else set "interestingly".

As for turning it OFF, seems easy enough to do it when you get out of bed (assuming you wear the mask all night). That would keep you from losing data with the power off.

[ractar28]

I lied. My a-flex was on 3. On 1 (I think that's what I had it set to), it won't turn itself on.

[feeling_better]

ractar28, First the whole thread here was on how to turn off the machine when needed (remotely). The M-series will turn on automatically when you start breathing with the mask on, if the machine was in the off condition before. So really, there is no additional mechanism needed for turning it on. BTW, you can also do setting to turn it off automatically, but this requires some time and it requires you to take the mask off with the resulting noise.

Regarding your last post, it is news to me that the machine does not turn on if it is in Aflex-1. AFAIK, the auto turn on is not dependent on any user controllable setting.
profligate

[ractar28]

ractar28, First the whole thread here was on how to turn off the machine when needed (remotely).

Sorry, I didn't see that in the post. I thought it was about being able to ramp if possible, followed by how to turn it on and off.

Regarding your last post, it is news to me that the machine does not turn on if it is in Aflex-1. AFAIK, the auto turn on is not dependent on any user controllable setting.

I didn't play with it for a long time, just noticed it happening at the a-flex 3 setting. I shut it down to 1 and took a few breaths and it never came on, though again, just tried for a few breaths.

[Guest]

ractar28,

Regarding your last post, it is news to me that the machine does not turn on if it is in Aflex-1. AFAIK, the auto turn on is not dependent on any user controllable setting.

I didn't play with it for a long time, just noticed it happening at the a-flex 3 setting. I shut it down to 1 and took a few breaths and it never came on, though again, just tried for a few breaths.

There are NO user settings or controls that will turn the "Auto ON feature" Off, none.

A poorly sealed or leaking mask will made it harder to turn on as will a longer hose.

I contend that the Auto OFF feature will negate any leak data required to make it work.