Encore Pro Question

elliejose · Post by **elliejose** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:49 pm

Can anyone tell me about how many night's detailed data the smartcard holds?? In other words, about how often do you erase your card?

Josie

CollegeGirl · Post by **CollegeGirl** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 9:51 pm

elliejose,
It varies - but usually I get at least 6 (sometimes 7 or nights before the machine starts overwriting data on my smartcard. Lost two nights data that way last week - doh!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 9:59 pm

Not sure how many nights' detail the smart card holds yet, but I don't believe there is any need to erase the data...

My understanding, and others will correct me if I'm wrong, is that as the machine writes new data to the card it automatically overwrites the oldest detailed data as it goes. So it only holds a certain number of days of detailed data, but I think it can store many months worth of compliance data.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 9:32 am

My understanding, and others will correct me if I'm wrong, is that as the machine writes new data to the card it automatically overwrites the oldest detailed data as it goes. So it only holds a certain number of days of detailed data, but I think it can store many months worth of compliance data.

Correct. It holds approx. 7 complete days of detailed data and up to 6 months compliance as per the manual. You need to be sure to set it so it asks if you want to delete the info, otherwise it will delete it by default. I never delete mine, it just overwrites the oldest data.

Wulfman · Post by **Wulfman** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 9:48 am

I never delete mine, it just overwrites the oldest data.

Ditto.

Den

feeling_better · Post by **feeling_better** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:44 pm

I just installed encorepro 1.8 yesterday. Everything appears to work fine. In the detailed report I see only 3 days' data. The data is not erased: the second day I saw again 3 days, with the first one from the previous 3 day set gone. When they print it out at my doc's, it is the same 3 day detail.

I have seen references here to 6+day storage. Is it possible it is a function of the storage size of the card? My machine M series is only a month old. Perhaps Respironics has started shipping a lower memory size card?? (While my camera manufacturer went from 8MB to 2000MB in about 5 years ).

1. How does one determine the size of of storage (without harming the card)? I have a guess mine is 32K.

2. If the m series will accept higher sizes, where does one buy such cards from (on the cheap)? How to format it? I like to keep a 7+ day detail if possible.

Wulfman · Post by **Wulfman** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:00 pm

If you have multiple sessions in one day (a session is determined if there is more than a 1-hour break between sleep periods), that will limit the number of what will show up on your downloads. Also, the M Series has been notorious for periodically taking two nights off for recording the nightly details. It still shows the compliance data but not the details. Your situation could be any or a combination of things......especially if you just recently started downloading the data.

Don't know if that helps.....

Den

feeling_better · Post by **feeling_better** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:07 pm

Wulfman,

Thank you. I do not have partial night sessions usually, I know what they are. So far in 4 downloads I have seen, over the past 4 weeks, it has been consistently 3days all the time. Also on two consecutive days, I got the last 3 days for each night correctly. Can this be consistent with the notorious data loss I have seen here in the forum every so often?

Wulfman · Post by **Wulfman** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:19 pm

feeling_better wrote:Wulfman,

Thank you. I do not have partial night sessions usually, I know what they are. So far in 4 downloads I have seen, over the past 4 weeks, it has been consistently 3days all the time. Also on two consecutive days, I got the last 3 days for each night correctly. Can this be consistent with the notorious data loss I have seen here in the forum every so often?

Without seeing your data reports, etc., I'm a little fuzzy on what's actually happening in your situation.......but, I will say......it sounds like that's what's happening.
I guess time will tell. "All things being equal"......if (for example) you slept for 7 full hours each night (straight through), you should be seeing 7 nights of detailed data in your downloads (interactions).

Den

feeling_better · Post by **feeling_better** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:32 pm

Den,

I have been using it at night for about 7:30 +- 30 min every night, and I do see the exact starting time I go to sleep and stop the machine correctly.

Now a thought occurred to me! I do run the machine almost every day for I think <1hr at some daytime to dry it out, w/ card in. I do not see any reports for that, but might that be using up 'pages'? It does not display them becausue it knows it was running totally open? Once I slept for about 90+ minutes during the day time w/ the machine, and that did show up as another report!

OK, as an expt from now on, I will pull out the card, before drying out.

But do you know the mem size of your card? I guessed mine was 32K becasue when I save the full data to a file with one of those utitilites from mycpap.com, the file size was 32k w/ .bin extension.

Wulfman · Post by **Wulfman** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:50 pm

Yep, that'll probably screw up your reports. I think you're being a little overly cautious about the drying thing, but it's "your call" and your therapy.

I really don't know the memory capacities of the cards......never really needed to. I think I've also seen the 32K figure somewhere, too. From looking at the gold-plated silicon chip, it appears to be divided into sections, which may be how/where it stores/moves specific data from/to the "detailed" categories to the "compliance" categories. So, how much storage is in each section or collectively? Don't know that either.

Den

feeling_better · Post by **feeling_better** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 4:43 pm

Den,

What you see in the sections of the gold plated areas are the contacts and shielding of the chip. The chip itself (silicon) would be much much smaller than the thumbnail size you see outside, perhaps 1 to 2 mm on each side.

The 32k size is total mem size in bytes. Here is an easy way to check to your size, if you are so inclined. Get the little utility from:

http://www.mycpap.org

install it. And when you open that program, you can read the data from the card (I believe the whole memory, the used and unused part) and save it to a file on your computer (This is a win, not a mac utility). The size of the file so saved is the memory size. BTW, this is just more than for checking the size, it is actually for backing up your whole card data, so if you want to go to another card and start with the current data, you can restore to that new card. Or for some rare conditions under which if your card has problems and loss data you can restore...

BTW, I had to have the encore sw started, before the utiltiy was able to see the card in the cardreader.

Wulfman · Post by **Wulfman** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 4:56 pm

I've downloaded that card utility software when it first came out (and a couple of other times since, to make sure I have a current version), but have never had the need to use it. I haven't had any "issues" with my cards or machines since my first year......and those incidents were probably misunderstandings on my part. "Tanks" don't normally have card problems.

Den

Goofproof · Post by **Goofproof** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:02 pm

feeling_better wrote:Den,

I have been using it at night for about 7:30 +- 30 min every night, and I do see the exact starting time I go to sleep and stop the machine correctly.

Now a thought occurred to me! I do run the machine almost every day for I think <1hr at some daytime to dry it out, w/ card in. I do not see any reports for that, but might that be using up 'pages'? It does not display them becausue it knows it was running totally open? Once I slept for about 90+ minutes during the day time w/ the machine, and that did show up as another report!

OK, as an expt from now on, I will pull out the card, before drying out.

But do you know the mem size of your card? I guessed mine was 32K becasue when I save the full data to a file with one of those utitilites from mycpap.com, the file size was 32k w/ .bin extension.

The size of the card is what it's supposed to be, it's the one that works with the program. I would stop using a costly XPAP for a dryer, if you must a hair dryer is much cheaper to replace. That's the way I am, you won't see me driving a Caddy to the dump to empty a waste basket. Jim

GumbyCT · Post by **GumbyCT** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:13 pm

feeling_better wrote:BTW, I had to have the encore sw started, before the utiltiy was able to see the card in the cardreader.

Just wondering, what that means? The MyCPAP Card utility is a stand alone program.

You shouldn't need anything else running. You do need to have the card in the reader.