Disappointed with Respironics M Series

Great post. I wish I could get my software working. I have a M series pro and I love it. If I get to much water in the tube, I turn the humidifier down. Lower due point.

I had an issue with my new machine making a lot of noise. When I researched it I found that I had put the gasket in the humidifier upside down after cleaning. It only goes in one way.

This is a lovely machine and having acquired it afte 6 years on my old noisy machine it is like heaven. I only wish I could get the software to work.

Let me weigh in. I'm a new user, new to CPAP and the whole shebang. My first machine is a CPAP -- Remstar M series Plus with Cflex set to 15 cm.
I have used it since Oct 3.

First, let me tell you about yesterday. The DME courier guy came out in the afternoon to swap machines with me, since I was sending the first unit back. (see below for why). He called to say he'd be there in 10, and I had to go to work in an hour.
When he showed up, I gave him the old unit and took the box for the new.
Wait a minute, this looks too small. I rip it open and the husband flags the guy down as he heads down the drive.
Oh, the tech on the phone in SoCal (I'm in NW Oregon) said to take the humidifier unit off and just send the main unit with the DME guy. So we sit down on the steps and try to figure out how to remove the CPAP from the humidifier. I find the manuals, but it's not totally clear from the pix (my machine is different design than manual) eventually we discover it just snaps up. He takes it, we install new and he boxes up the rest. I remember to pull the smart card.
Flash forward to bedtime. I take the new unit into the bedroom and discover that I can't install the smart card because this machine has no reader. Apparently we were supposed to transfer the unit from the old machine. Duh.

Then I set it up and realize I left my filters in the old machine. Duh two.

And then, I can't find the power cord. I apparently came loose from the power supply and fell off in the box which is either in the courier's van or in the trash where he threw out the box. Duh three, and AAAARRRGGGHHH!

So I spent last night on O2 alone, which provided me with a valuable lesson in what good my CPAP is doing. It was hell without that darn machine, even though it's heck with it sometimes.

Okay, the review.
CONS
1. Guys, I'm not stupid, but this was my first machine. All the usage and assembly was new to me. It came with no warning labels. I picked it up and carried it from the back room and armchair (where I assembled it and tried it) into the bedroom before I remembered about the full water reservoir. AGH! (the tech on the phone had warned me not to carry it with water in it, two days before the machine arrived).
So after about a week, I noticed it was still smelling strongly like machine oil when I removed the mask in the morning, so I called the tech, and she agreed, reluctantly, to send it back to the manufacturer. I really should have known better, she said.
They should have designed better or done better with the warnings, I said.
(It does say it in the manual, and I did read the manual as I assembled it).
Any of the rest of you have short term memory problems?

2. The noise took a bit of getting used to, but I can live with it. Setting it down lower, but not on the floor helped with both the rainout which was really bad at first (changing location and mask helped)

3.I find that battery/converter/power supply a nuisance, with either too short or too long of cords. The power cord comes off too easily. (see above).

4. If you are not level with the machine when you load the water supply for the humidifier, it tends to slosh, but since it's inside the machine, you don't know that. Loading it is awkward and tricky, and sometimes frustrating.

5.It sure would be nice to be able to see the LED info without turning on a light. If they can make the buttons glow blue, they could surely backlight the display.

6. Train the DMEs in the machines, setting, assembly and disassembly for crying out loud!

PROS
Mind you, this is my first machine, so I have nothing to compare it to.
1. I like compact all in one unit.
2. when it works, heated humid air is wonderful, Vast improvement over not.
Couldn't they just put some kind of cover that seals the water reservoir from the rest of the unit when it's turned off, and opens when it's on?
3. Cflex is wonderful
4. Ramping is wonderful, and being able to change it to match my fall asleep time is great.
5. Once I got a mask to seal and moved the unit below bed level, the noise of inhale/exhale got quite tolerable. I would think you could sound insulate it yourself (not blocking air intake, of course) if the noise bugged you. Like, put it on a vibration damping pad, and block the sides, top with something like 1" stryofoam insulation taped together, leave back open but aimed away from you.

Okay, that's it for now.
Barbara

Anonymous wrote:Actually, NyNurse has it right. Hot air can hold more water than cold air so if you have your humidifier up high, it is hotter and holds more water. Then as the air travels along the hose the air cools down and therefore can hold less water causing rain-out.

Solutions like the heated hose/tube buddies keep the air in the tube at the same temperature therefore hold the humidity.

If you keep the temp level of your humidifier close to room temp this will also help to prevent rain out.

Absolutely NYNurse had it right. Not to say Snoredogs was wrong, but it WAS a very convoluted explanation. Air can hold a certain amount of moisture at any temperature. The warmer the air, the more it can hold. That's why it is called RELATIVE humidity.

When air (warm or cold, that is relative too) cools to its dew point - the point where it can no longer hold additional moisture - also the point where it is at 100% relative humidity - then the water vapor condenses from vapor to liquid. If air cools in the atmosphere, we see clouds form. If air in a tube cools against the wall of the tube to its dew point, condensation forms. It is the air COOLING that causes the condensation. The act of condensation causes warming in itself, for example how your cold drink gets warm on a summer day - partly from the ambient warmer temp, and partly from the condensation. That's why thunderstorms feed on themselves and often grow larger. The atmospheric uplift causes the air to cool and condense causing rain. When a cloud rains (condensation), it releases heat, and the air rises, thus cooling and causing more rain.

Just remember, it is all relative.

Snoredog wrote:I used my new M series Auto last night for the first time, just got it yesterday. I want to use it a good week before writing much about it. But what I do know so far:

3. I have owned ALL the versions of the Remstar Auto, this M series is the quietest one of them all without a doubt./

Your're joking right?

[quote="Justin_Case"][quote="Snoredog"]I used my new M series Auto last night for the first time, just got it yesterday. I want to use it a good week before writing much about it. But what I do know so far:

3. I have owned ALL the versions of the Remstar Auto, this M series is the quietest one of them all without a doubt.

Your're joking right?

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely NYNurse had it right. Not to say Snoredogs was wrong, but it WAS a very convoluted explanation.

Yep, Melissa had it right. That is, up until the point where she said, "Maybe I should raise the humidifier's temp to keep it warmer through the hose."

It took me quite a few readings of Melissa's post to see why in the world snoredog thought she had the cause of rainout wrong. I finally realized it looked like he must have been zeroing in on that one sentence. If that were all a person took from Melissa's post, that would bring on a "no no no -- you have it backwards." "It" being a solution to rainout. Raising the humidifier's temperature would make rainout worse, not better.

She has already posted like 20 posts on the problem. I'll let the guests figure it out.

rested gal wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely NYNurse had it right. Not to say Snoredogs was wrong, but it WAS a very convoluted explanation.

Yep, Melissa had it right. That is, up until the point where she said, "Maybe I should raise the humidifier's temp to keep it warmer through the hose."

It took me quite a few readings of Melissa's post to see why in the world snoredog thought she had the cause of rainout wrong. I finally realized it looked like he must have been zeroing in on that one sentence. If that were all a person took from Melissa's post, that would bring on a "no no no -- you have it backwards." "It" being a solution to rainout. Raising the humidifier's temperature would make rainout worse, not better.

LOL if Melissa had it right, why is the problem still there after about 20 posts?

RG: wrote:

Raising the humidifier's temperature would make rainout worse, not better.

Now your starting to make sense, I have a couple buddies that live in NY and Maine, they are always b*tching when they go to finish cabinets that there is too much humidity in the air that they cannot spray lacquer. They have to compensate by putting retarder in the mix or the finish will turn milky from all the moisture.

That machine takes the cold room air and "compresses" it via the blower. When you compress air it becomes more dense and it creates HEAT in the process. This WHY automobiles with turbos have intercoolers, turbo compresses the air, makes it more dense but heats the air up too much, they send the hot air through a intercooler where it cools it before going into the engine for better combustion.

In her case you are compressing already "humid air" so it is pumping a ton of moisture through the machine then over a water tank. Heat the water in the tank you get even more moisture in the air just as you said to where it condenses into droplets on the inside of the hose which is the cause of rainout.

The COLDER the room air is the MORE moisture will condense on the INSIDE of the hose. If you cannot WARM the room temp to prevent that then you insulate the hose from the COLDer ROOM air, that is WHY putting a flannel cover on the hose helps with rain out.

You want MORE moisture you turn the humidifier heat up and the water will evaporate at a faster rate.

You know it is NOT real difficult, if you turn the heat OFF and you are still getting rainout you don't use the friggin humidifier, I don't know what is so difficult to understand about that.

Snoredog wrote:LOL if Melissa had it right, why is the problem still there after about 20 posts?

'cuz she's still resisting buying the Aussie heated hose, that's why.

Melissa, I hope that's on your Christmas wish-list. I'd get it way before then, if I were you. But that's up to you. I kept holding off getting the heated hose, too. But after I got it I found it was one of the few "cpap" things that does what it says it will do... stop rainout completely or at the very worst almost completely. Does it soooo well.

Hey, we spend a third -- one whole third -- of our life sleeping! Or trying to sleep. $90 or so dollars was well worth paying to not ever again have water shooting into my nose waking me up. Been happily using the heated hose for over three years now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, NyNurse has it right. Hot air can hold more water than cold air so if you have your humidifier up high, it is hotter and holds more water. Then as the air travels along the hose the air cools down and therefore can hold less water causing rain-out.

Solutions like the heated hose/tube buddies keep the air in the tube at the same temperature therefore hold the humidity.

If you keep the temp level of your humidifier close to room temp this will also help to prevent rain out.

Absolutely NYNurse had it right. Not to say Snoredogs was wrong, but it WAS a very convoluted explanation. Air can hold a certain amount of moisture at any temperature. The warmer the air, the more it can hold. That's why it is called RELATIVE humidity.

When air (warm or cold, that is relative too) cools to its dew point - the point where it can no longer hold additional moisture - also the point where it is at 100% relative humidity - then the water vapor condenses from vapor to liquid. If air cools in the atmosphere, we see clouds form. If air in a tube cools against the wall of the tube to its dew point, condensation forms. It is the air COOLING that causes the condensation. The act of condensation causes warming in itself, for example how your cold drink gets warm on a summer day - partly from the ambient warmer temp, and partly from the condensation. That's why thunderstorms feed on themselves and often grow larger. The atmospheric uplift causes the air to cool and condense causing rain. When a cloud rains (condensation), it releases heat, and the air rises, thus cooling and causing more rain.

Just remember, it is all relative.

[quote="Snoredog"]
Nope, not at all. Still have my older Remstar Auto w/cflex to compare it to, used it nearly a week now. Not impressed with the humdifier but the machine is quieter.

I don't know what to say, except in my side-by-side comparisons with the same two machines as you, the M series was considerably noisier. Makes me wonder if there is something different in the manufacturing process.

Snoredog wrote: Nope, not at all. Still have my older Remstar Auto w/cflex to compare it to, used it nearly a week now. Not impressed with the humdifier but the machine is quieter.

Sorry again, IE won't allow me to login to this site, I have to use Firfox.

I don't know what to say, except in my side-by-side comparisons with the same two machines as you, the M series was considerably noisier. Makes me wonder if there is something different in the manufacturing process.