Solar Charging CPAP?

[awags]

Hi everyone - I'm really confused about solar charging for my transcend travel CPAP. We like to do 4-5 day river rafting trips and will not have access to backup power such as car or battery. I think my only option is to go solar but not being even remotely educated to figure it out. I do have the a backup battery pack for my CPAP but it only lasts about 1.5 nights so I need to get another 3 or so days of charging. I'm really terrified of being remote and it not working but I miss the adventure of the backcountry.

Does anyone have any suggestions of being completely off the grid and not being able to take a lot of gear?

[D.H.]

I do believe that this is possible; other than in the winter time or in very bad weather.

[Pugsy]

We have a forum member who loves to do the rafting and rapids thing..... raftergirl

She used some type of battery system and solar for recharging. When you have time you might start reading some of her threads to see what she did.
I don't remember enough of the particulars to help.

viewtopic/t154627/search.php?author_id=72868&sr=posts

It can be done but does take some planning.

[Goofproof]

I do believe that this is possible; other than in the winter time or in very bad weather.

Very Informative, I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows..

Put the title of this thread in the search at the top of the page, many pages of talk on the subject. It's only money, and stuff to carry. Jim

Lots of ways to go.

[Hopeful50]

I know next to nothing about charging batteries (brand new owner of the Freedom battery for my Resmed) - but Amazon does sell solar chargers for CPAP batteries. This one says it's for the Transcend:
https://smile.amazon.com/Transcend-CPAP ... ap+battery

Lousy reviews, though.

[CapnLoki]

Hi everyone - I'm really confused about solar charging for my transcend travel CPAP. We like to do 4-5 day river rafting trips and will not have access to backup power such as car or battery. I think my only option is to go solar but not being even remotely educated to figure it out. I do have the a backup battery pack for my CPAP but it only lasts about 1.5 nights so I need to get another 3 or so days of charging. I'm really terrified of being remote and it not working but I miss the adventure of the backcountry.

Does anyone have any suggestions of being completely off the grid and not being able to take a lot of gear?

I live off grid during the summer, charging with solar panels. However, I have 5 large panels totally 350 Watts so its not the same thing. The problem is that solar charging commonly assumes a reasonable amount of sun, both in terms of no clouds and also no shading. You can guess the cloudiness by looking up a sun factor for your location and season; it usually runs 3 to 4 hours a day. In other words, a location you might assume 3 hours average total sun. Of course that's an average - cloudy days could leave you with nothing. The other issue is shading. On my boat that's only a small problem with the mast shading the panels sometimes, but camping you have to worry about trees. And rafting you can be in a canyon that actually sees very little sun. And then there's the time of day - When I rafted it was 10 AM to 4 PM, which would be the prime time to collect solar power. In other words, there are a lot of factors going against you.
I think the solution raftergirl used was to carry several smaller AGM batteries, perhaps 20 AH each. I'm not sure if you can run a Transcend from a 12 volt, and I don't know what your situation is, so you'll have to give us some more info if you want more detailed help.

[Gryphon]

This is totally doable. Just depends on how much you want to spend and how much weight your able to carry. That and the severity of your apnea if it's not treated at all. (only saying that as a worse case scenario if your plan fails) Is your apnea bad enough that a few nights with out treatment could be life threatening? If it is then you may want to look at it more like Xxyzx was - though I think he's being a bit alarmist and over the top.

Given it's a rafting trip - you may be able to get away with more weight then say a backpacking trip.
There Lithium batteries that are small powerful and portable, they are expensive though. You could go with a less expensive battery the kind used on an electric wheel chair but they would be bulkier.

Then you would need a solar charging array. They sell 80Watt units on Amazon for under 350 dollars. You may not even need something that big or expensive.
At that point its more just doing the math. You need to work out how much power your cpap consumes per use + 20% as a cushion. Then double that if not more so for what ever battery your going to use. If you want to be able to go two nights or three... same thing. Look at battery capacity and or number of batteries. Most batteries don't like being drained all the way down so you only want to use up about half the capacity before you start charging it back up. Then work out how much power you need to charge that battery back to 100% in the allotted time you'll have in good sun once your at camp. Or work out a way to drape the panels over part of the raft. This may not work as they could get damaged if the conditions get wild and crazy.

Try to work in wiggle room. Know that conditions can and will change and you don't want to work out what your able to do in say full bright sun in your back yard only to find that its cloudy for 2 nights on your trip and you didn't plan any reserve power.

Overall the process is no different then any one else that goes off grid in a boat or camper. You have options.
You just need to do your homework and before you stake your health or life on it - test it out at home.

This overall topic has been discussed plenty of times on this forum in the past. If you do a little digging in the search bar I'm sure you'll find posts that go in to great detail about making a system that you can carry around with out breaking your back.

I my self have a battery system that I use at home but would not work for camping or a boat trip as my battery is so heavy and I use power from the grid to maintain my battery.

I wish you luck in pursuing this and safe travels

Gryphon

[Pugsy]

It is doable but will take considerable thought and planning for all potential variables and problems.
It won't be cheap.
Raftergirl did a lot of trial and error and experimenting to come up with what works for her. She's a serious rafter too. Not just a day tripper. She would go on week long rafting trips.
I think she ended up having multiple batteries (AGM I think) and also had some solar charging stuff for the times when she had sun.

Read through her threads. She did a good job explaining and documenting the pros and cons with each different set up she tried.

[Hopeful50]

My Freedom Travel Battery gives me two full nights while camping, as long as I set it for straight cpap mode and use no heat and no humidity. You can connect two of them together to get four nights, total cost around $465 from cpap.com.

[awags]

We have a forum member who loves to do the rafting and rapids thing..... raftergirl

She used some type of battery system and solar for recharging. When you have time you might start reading some of her threads to see what she did.
I don't remember enough of the particulars to help.

viewtopic/t154627/search.php?author_id=72868&sr=posts

It can be done but does take some planning.

This was incredibly helpful, thank you. Turns out raftergirl and I are literally in the same boat! I hail from SLC, UT too and probably run the same rivers she does. Our next trip isn't until September so I have plenty of planning and testing before then. Thanks again!

[awags]

I know next to nothing about charging batteries (brand new owner of the Freedom battery for my Resmed) - but Amazon does sell solar chargers for CPAP batteries. This one says it's for the Transcend:
https://smile.amazon.com/Transcend-CPAP ... ap+battery

Lousy reviews, though.

Thanks for the assist, I have seen that solar charger before and almost bought it when I got my travel Cpap with the backup battery....glad I didn't add it. Looks like cpap crap, but I can offer that I have had my transcend with back up battery for a few years now and LOVE IT, worth every penny. I still get a get about 12 hours on the backup battery.

[awags]

This is totally doable. Just depends on how much you want to spend and how much weight your able to carry. That and the severity of your apnea if it's not treated at all. (only saying that as a worse case scenario if your plan fails) Is your apnea bad enough that a few nights with out treatment could be life threatening? If it is then you may want to look at it more like Xxyzx was - though I think he's being a bit alarmist and over the top.

Given it's a rafting trip - you may be able to get away with more weight then say a backpacking trip.
There Lithium batteries that are small powerful and portable, they are expensive though. You could go with a less expensive battery the kind used on an electric wheel chair but they would be bulkier.

Then you would need a solar charging array. They sell 80Watt units on Amazon for under 350 dollars. You may not even need something that big or expensive.
At that point its more just doing the math. You need to work out how much power your cpap consumes per use + 20% as a cushion. Then double that if not more so for what ever battery your going to use. If you want to be able to go two nights or three... same thing. Look at battery capacity and or number of batteries. Most batteries don't like being drained all the way down so you only want to use up about half the capacity before you start charging it back up. Then work out how much power you need to charge that battery back to 100% in the allotted time you'll have in good sun once your at camp. Or work out a way to drape the panels over part of the raft. This may not work as they could get damaged if the conditions get wild and crazy.

Try to work in wiggle room. Know that conditions can and will change and you don't want to work out what your able to do in say full bright sun in your back yard only to find that its cloudy for 2 nights on your trip and you didn't plan any reserve power.

Overall the process is no different then any one else that goes off grid in a boat or camper. You have options.
You just need to do your homework and before you stake your health or life on it - test it out at home.

This overall topic has been discussed plenty of times on this forum in the past. If you do a little digging in the search bar I'm sure you'll find posts that go in to great detail about making a system that you can carry around with out breaking your back.

I my self have a battery system that I use at home but would not work for camping or a boat trip as my battery is so heavy and I use power from the grid to maintain my battery.

I wish you luck in pursuing this and safe travels

Gryphon

Thank you, your comments are valid.

I have moderate sleep apnea, so it's not life threatening per se but I will absolutely not be able to sleep without it.

Trees won't be the issue although there could be some high canyon walls (although for the most part very wide open river). Our trip would be is September which is generally a very sunny time, although you just never know....

Weight is also not a huge issue, we have inflatable kayaks that can haul A LOT but that also means you have to paddle that weight:)

I think at this point I may just PM raftergirl and introduce myself since there generally aren't many rating people with sleep apnea in the same city:) Sounds like she is the resident expert.

[schwankster]

I do a lot of 1-2 night camping now, and will be doing several 5-7 night wilderness trips in the next couple of years (my son is a Boy Scout). for my last 5-night canoe trip in Canada, I used a Transcend CPAP with a Goal Zero Sherpa 100 battery, Goal Zero Nomad 28+ solar panel, and the Transcend 12v adapter. I would get about 3 nights out of the battery, but the solar panel would easily charge or top off the battery while canoeing or when at camp. A full charge on the battery would take about 7 hours of sunshine, but since I topped it off every day I never dropped below 40% on the battery even when we had rain and cloudy skies. The solar panel is waterproof, so I just laid it out on our packs in the canoe, and left it there all the time while we were paddling. I kept the battery in a waterproof "dry bag" to protect it since the battery isn't waterproof. When portaging (carrying the canoes across land to the next lake) I would fold up the solar panel and slide it inside my life jacket (between my chest and the life jacket), and use a carabiner to connect the dry bag (with the battery inside) to my vest or belt. As soon as we got to the next lake, I'd unfold the panel in the canoe and start charging again. Worked like a charm.

That trip got me thinking about a better way to power the Transcend without their 12v adapter. I knew I was losing power by going through two 12v "cigarette" adapters and the Transcend 12v transformer, and that was a lot of extra pieces to lug around. Once I got back home I decided to try the "laptop" port on the Sherpa 100 battery to power the Transcend, since that port provides a direct 19v power source. The Transcend uses 19v, just like most laptops. The Goal Zero cable was too large to fit into the deep socket on the Transcend, so I ordered an extra 6mm cable and used a razor blade to trim the plastic on the barrel of the plug and it fits into the Transcend perfectly now. The fantastic news is that by omitting the 12V adapters from Transcend and going directly to the 19v port on the Sherpa battery, I only used 10% of the battery on a recent camping night! I couldn't believe it when I got up in the morning (after 8 hours of sleep) and the battery was showing 90% full. If that power usage remains consistent, I should be able to get at least a week (or more) of power out of the Sherpa battery while using the Transcend CPAP.

The cost of the Goal Zero Nomad 28+ solar panel was less than the price of the Transcend solar panel, and it is much more powerful and more versatile to use on other equipment besides just the Transcend battery. The cost of the Goal Zero Sherpa 100 battery was about the same price as the Transcend battery, but it has much more power and it can be used with other equipment too. The downside is that the Sherpa battery is much larger (and heavier) than the Transcend battery, but I can get many more nights of CPAP therapy from the battery and I can use the same battery to charge all kinds of other equipment too. I was able to keep my camera batteries charged on the canoe trip, as well as charging the other guys phones too.

[Cordero21]

I would like to know if you had continued success with your Sherpa100 as it sounds like a great solution if it continued providing the results you expected. Can you tell me which extra cable you purchased that you modified to fit in the Transcend unit from the Sherpa 100? Anything else you can share about your success. What pressure is your CPAP set at and how many nights did it ultimately last with the Sherpa 100? Thanks in advance.

[Pk_in_dallas]

Schwangster,

I just purchased the Transcend mini CPap and getting ready to go to Alaska for a hunting trip. I would like to use the 19v laptop connection vs 12v so I can get more out of it. How easy is modifying the Goalzero plug to make it fit in the Transcend?