Battery backup without an alarm

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cathyf
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Battery backup without an alarm

Post by cathyf » Sat Oct 03, 2015 8:28 pm

After a little scare with thinking I had a power failure, I started researching battery backups.

Now I am very familiar with UPSs, because at work we have a diesel generator, which we test every week by switching over to generator for an hour. What we know is that the power drops on both the on and the off, and we have battery backups on most of the computers in the building. Which means that every Tuesday every battery in the place beeps, and every employee jumps, and then an hour later every battery beeps again and every employee jumps again.

So I know that while I could get a garden variety computer UPS and plug my cpap into it, I also know that as long as the $!*#@% thing was beeping I wouldn't NEED the cpap because I wouldn't be asleep!

Has anyone solved this problem? Did you find a brand/model of UPS which has an off switch for the alarm? Maybe somebody knows of the right spot to shove a screwdriver into the works and short circuit the alarm?

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SgtWilko
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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by SgtWilko » Sat Oct 03, 2015 9:17 pm

cathyf wrote: So I know that while I could get a garden variety computer UPS and plug my cpap into it, I also know that as long as the $!*#@% thing was beeping I wouldn't NEED the cpap because I wouldn't be asleep!

Has anyone solved this problem? Did you find a brand/model of UPS which has an off switch for the alarm? Maybe somebody knows of the right spot to shove a screwdriver into the works and short circuit the alarm?
Hello Cathy,

I've been using a sinewave UPS on which I can mute the alarm with the push of a button. It is a Cyberpower CP1000PFCLCD. I do however keep it unmuted until there is an actual event. That way, I get woken up and can switch off the humidifier to maximize my run time before going back to sleep.

I see from your signature that you have an Airsense 10 so you would not need a sinewave UPS. You can get a larger capacity, yet still reasonably priced unit like the BRG1500AVRLCD (18AH battery pack vs 9AH for mine) for example. This one also has the "Silent mode" feature which allows you to mute the alarm.

Regards,
Sgt Wilko

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CapnLoki
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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by CapnLoki » Sun Oct 04, 2015 4:57 am

cathyf wrote:...
So I know that while I could get a garden variety computer UPS and plug my cpap into it, I also know that as long as the $!*#@% thing was beeping I wouldn't NEED the cpap because I wouldn't be asleep!

Has anyone solved this problem? Did you find a brand/model of UPS which has an off switch for the alarm? Maybe somebody knows of the right spot to shove a screwdriver into the works and short circuit the alarm?
My small computer system's is an APC 550 (about $60) that is intended for keeping my file server and router running long enough (about 15 minutes) for an orderly shutdown. It does have software to silence the alarm, either during a specific time period or all the time.

The problem with this sort of device is that the battery is usually rather small, and likely would not get you through the night with the humidifier running. The system I use, described in the last post of this thread, has a battery 4 times bigger than a small UPS (and even that could have trouble at high humidity settings) and can be easily configured to run in UPS mode - that is charging all the time and automatically going to battery power during a failure:

viewtopic.php?t=102775

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teh_z0r
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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by teh_z0r » Mon Feb 08, 2016 10:40 pm

Sgt Wilko: I'm looking for some sort of battery backup solution, and I'm not sure if I need a pure sine wave uninterruptable power supply or not. You seemed to know above that Cathy's Airsense would not need a UPC with this feature. I have a Resmed S9 with an H5i humidifier. Do I need a pure sine wave UPS?

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palerider
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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by palerider » Mon Feb 08, 2016 11:44 pm

teh_z0r wrote:Sgt Wilko: I'm looking for some sort of battery backup solution, and I'm not sure if I need a pure sine wave uninterruptable power supply or not. You seemed to know above that Cathy's Airsense would not need a UPC with this feature. I have a Resmed S9 with an H5i humidifier. Do I need a pure sine wave UPS?
modern switching power supplies, such as on the s9 and airsense 10 machines do not require sine wave input.

one of the giveaways is if it is a universal power supply, saying something like 100-240v, 50-60hz. those will eat pretty much anything except DC, including stepped wave inverter power. in fact, somewhere I think I read that those power supplies (switching supplies) even prefer stepped wave input.

they're basically the same kind of power supplies that are in computers, so it make sense that UPSs for computers would work fine... right?

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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by teh_z0r » Mon Feb 08, 2016 11:47 pm

Great info, thanks!

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SgtWilko
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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by SgtWilko » Tue Feb 09, 2016 12:41 am

palerider wrote: modern switching power supplies, such as on the s9 and airsense 10 machines do not require sine wave input.
I agree with Palerider. However, I would switch the humidifier off when operating under power failure conditions. Otherwise, your run time will be rather short. Unless of course you have a hefty UPS. See the Resmed battery guide to get an idea of the required battery capacity for your S9 with and without humidification/climateline. Resmed's numbers include a healthy safety factor but it will give you a reasonable idea of runtime vs battery capacity.

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palerider
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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by palerider » Tue Feb 09, 2016 2:25 am

SgtWilko wrote:
palerider wrote: modern switching power supplies, such as on the s9 and airsense 10 machines do not require sine wave input.
I agree with Palerider. However, I would switch the humidifier off when operating under power failure conditions. Otherwise, your run time will be rather short. Unless of course you have a hefty UPS. See the Resmed battery guide to get an idea of the required battery capacity for your S9 with and without humidification/climateline. Resmed's numbers include a healthy safety factor but it will give you a reasonable idea of runtime vs battery capacity.
another thing to keep in mind, a lot of smaller computer UPSs aren't rated for long runtimes, as noted above, they're mainly there to ride through short power outages, or give you enough time to shut down. they're not necessarily engineered for hours of continuous use.

also, a UPS and a 110v power supply is going to be less efficient, batterywise, than the resmed 12 to 24v power converter will be, so you'll get less hours out of a set battery size using the UPS route.

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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by WindCpap » Tue Feb 09, 2016 8:41 am

APC ups's allow you to turn the alarms off with software. Just plug it into your computer, and install the provided software. I have never used the windows apps for this as my UPSs are plugged into Linux machines, and I have always used open source control software, but I am pretty sure the alarm settings are in the standard software. If not, you should be able to find something on the internet.

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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by sparkycpap » Mon Oct 30, 2017 2:23 pm

What you're looking for is not a home battery backup UPS solution. All of them beep, mainly because they're there to protect a computer or router load, and when asked if they'd remove the beep for a special model, APC declined several years ago. These units will not power your CPAP for more than an hour or two, even if you get the larger 700-1000VA units, and only have them for your CPAP

So, what to do? You want continuous power, but don't want something that asks for a cookie every time it protects you from the occasional blip or outage. I had to research this a lot. You'd think there'd be more of a following of people who hate the beep, got together and made their own quiet unit. Nope.

The solution I found is from the "Shore power" appliance market. TrippLite makes what is called an Inverter/Charger unit, not just an inverter, but a unit that charges and maintains user-supplied batteries. It's more expensive, and requires some know-how for initial setup, but these units are designed for mobile/marine units that use house-current for their appliances: The units are placed in front of computers or refrigerators, the load is plugged into them, and also a marine battery is plugged into the unit. If the shore power is disconnected, the inverter takes over, uses the attached battery, and the load is protected, like a UPS, except that, drum roll please, NO BEEP. When commercial power is restored, the unit returns to using the external power while recharging the batteries. The transfer time is similar to a UPS with 6-10ms, so you know there's a transfer, but it maintains the load without a drop.

I use a TrippLite APS1250, (~$400 online w/shipping) which allows up to 1250W usage continuous, 1800W for 30 minutes (for surges from pumps or compressors), and 2500W for ~10 seconds for those really annoying appliance startups. Hooked to 3 lead acid deep-cycle marine batteries at 115AH each, in parallel, I get roughly 6 hours if I'm using about 75% of the capacity. Yes, I hooked my computer, my TV, router, wifi, xbox, monitors, lights, and my Respironics M cpap to it, so I'm a little more of a tinkerer than most. This is not a pure sine-wave model, but the CPAP's 12V power brick handles the PWM just fine, as PWM sine wave is suitable for sensitive electronic equipment and motors. You can get the pure sine-wave models, but expect to pay over $1000 for the product.

There is a smaller unit APS750 which has similar specs, goes for about $280 online, just the unit. Batteries, depending on size and how much runtime you want, are extra. Plus, cabling (6ga for single battery, 4ga for more than that) and an inline DC fuse box to prevent overdraw. Figure on spending $400-500 for this project, but I'm on the 4th year without an issue. The batteries last 6-10 years if properly maintained, and while I'm going to replace the main unit soon, it's not because it'll die, I just don't like relying on things older than 5 years, especially when my sleep is involved.

Hope it helps.

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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by palerider » Mon Oct 30, 2017 5:56 pm

sparkycpap wrote:The solution I found is from the "Shore power" appliance market.
I use a TrippLite APS1250, (~$400 online w/shipping) which allows up to 1250W usage continuous, 1800W for 30 minutes (for surges from pumps or compressors), and 2500W for ~10 seconds for those really annoying appliance startups.
For anybody that's skipped the *much better* suggestions above... This one is far from the best solution.

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CapnLoki
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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by CapnLoki » Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:04 am

sparkycpap wrote:What you're looking for is not a home battery backup UPS solution. All of them beep, mainly because they're there to protect a computer or router load, and when asked if they'd remove the beep for a special model, APC declined several years ago. These units will not power your CPAP for more than an hour or two, even if you get the larger 700-1000VA units, and only have them for your CPAP

So, what to do? You want continuous power, but don't want something that asks for a cookie every time it protects you from the occasional blip or outage. I had to research this a lot. You'd think there'd be more of a following of people who hate the beep, got together and made their own quiet unit. Nope.

The solution I found is from the "Shore power" appliance market. TrippLite makes what is called an Inverter/Charger unit, not just an inverter, but a unit that charges and maintains user-supplied batteries. It's more expensive, and requires some know-how for initial setup, but these units are designed for mobile/marine units that use house-current for their appliances: The units are placed in front of computers or refrigerators, the load is plugged into them, and also a marine battery is plugged into the unit ...
I wanted to add some comments here for the record -
The concept of these Inverter/Charges in general and the Tripp-Lites in particular is fine. They are very common in the RV and marine market - I have a 2000W Xantrex unit on my boat which I used continuously when I lived dockside. They are also very useful if you have a home system where you want a significant amount of power to run computers and small appliances for longer than the few minutes that a small UPS will last. They are designed for battery packs of 100 to 800 Amp-hours so the total investment begins at around $500 but the typical user is probably configuring a system of $1000 to, well, I hate to say how much boaters can spend on this stuff. BTW, for the last few years I haven't used shore power so I don't use the "charger side" and the inverter mainly gets used briefly for the microwave and coffee grinder - all my small appliances have small, more efficient inverters. Wherever possible, I run 12v directly to avoid the inverter.

For cpap backup, this is overkill. I couldn't find a spec, but I would guess that the 750 watt inverter, when supplying only 10 watts of a cpap (or even 60 watts for the heater) is 50% at best. It may actually be much worse if the unit itself has an overhead of 10 to 20 watts. My inverter/charger has an "energy saver" mode that still costs over 10 watts. If, for example, I turned off the TV but left the inverter on overnight, it could use more power than my cpap uses overnight.

The bottom line is that if you're building a backup system that can run a cpap with humidity for more than several nights, if you want to run computers and maybe even a small fridge, this could be part of the solution. For one or two nights, up to a week, you can put together a much simpler, cheaper system.

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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by Doublev » Wed Nov 01, 2017 2:09 am

I agree the battery and inverter are overkill. Also not safe if batteries are exposed. As well as very bulky and consuming space if in your bedroom. The right solution depends on your power reliability. In the last 10 years I have only had two power outages (less than 2 hours) and they were announced days in advance. I have no power backup solution. But in my prior residence it was a 2-4x a year event and lasted up to a full day. There I had a UPS and honda portable generator (extremely quiet generator — just run it outside with extension cord). My feeling is unless you have a lot of power problems where overkill is needed buy a honda eu2000i generator and a small UPS. The generator is expensive but should last decades and will power a lot of other things.

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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by Guest » Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:15 am

Doublev wrote: My feeling is unless you have a lot of power problems where overkill is needed buy a honda eu2000i generator and a small UPS. The generator is expensive but should last decades and will power a lot of other things.
While this is an old thread, I think it is worth pointing out for those who will consider a generator for backup power that a propane type is a better choice for long term storage.

Reason is that both gas & diesel fuels can not only go bad but clog the fuel parts so that the engine won't start. Making them useless when you need them unless you perform regular maintenance to prevent such failures, which also requires regular running of this equipment.

Also worth noting that your neighbors would appreciate you more if the noise generator went to sleep when they do. Meaning for sleep, a battery power source is a better and quieter choice. And there are plenty of reasonably priced battery options, you only need to be sure to get the battery cable that fits your cpap make & model.

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CapnLoki
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Re: Battery backup without an alarm

Post by CapnLoki » Wed Nov 01, 2017 6:06 am

Yes, I'd agree that propane or natural gas is the preferred choice for a whole house generator. But I also agree that a small genset like the Honda EU2000i is a very handy device. I have one as the "final backup" on the boat - I use it a few times a year. At home it hasn't been needed but it could be used to run the fridge, etc and charge batteries. I wouldn't leave it running a night. At low power its very quiet, but at high power its fairly loud.

BTW, there is a propane conversion kit for the Honda.

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Machine: DreamStation Auto CPAP Machine
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Additional Comments: Pressure 9-20, average ~9.5; often use battery power while off-grid
Hark, how hard he fetches breath . . .  Act II, Scene IV, King Henry IV Part I, William Shakespeare
Choosing a Battery thread: http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t1140 ... ttery.html