Backpacking & tent camping

OK, so I'm new to this, but seem to be doing very well.

Dx with an AHI of 97. The doctor said that I basically could not sleep and breath at the same time. So, four days on CPAP w a pressure of 13 and I love it. Am more rested than I've been in 30 years.

So, the question, I camp and packpack a lot in the spring and fall. There is no electricity where I go.

I'm afraid to take my "good" resmed S9, and am looking at buying a Transcend travel unit, battery and solar panel.

Any one know where these can be obtained 2nd hand ?

Anyone have an experience in using the battery / solar charging ?

thanks

Greg

Bumping it up so folks who know about this can answer you.

Greg,

Do a search of the forum for "camping" or "battery" or "backpacking" to see if your questions have been answered before.

Also, what type of backpacking & tent camping are you talking about? Appalachian Trail stuff or carry your stuff from the car to the campsite stuff? How many days in the tent off the grid?

Chris

Only a few days at a time. Usually along the A T in Va

If you have some money to throw at the problem I would get one of the Honda Generators like the EU1000i. These are about the size of a 12 pack of soda and they will run all night. On top of that, they are very quiet. Impossible to hear if it is 10-15 feet away from your tent. And it will work fine for laptops, cell phone chargers or other electronic devices with its filtered power supply to the outlets.

Another option are the battery backup units and you will find many threads using search.

This may be a little hardcore but it is an interesting thread.
viewtopic/t86960/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=84 ... ng#p771020

Trek with one of these and you could bring along anything.


But that Transcend machine does look like the way to go for light packing.

Probably the size of these old telephones.

Buy a deep cycle battery, battery box, very thick 12v adapter to your cpap. This works well. Go in bypass mode for the humidifier if you can. The battery can last a few days and it can be charged with your car.

I am assuming the cpap is 12 dc.

Keep the cpap in your car as long as you can to isolate it from camp fire smoke. Depending on how cold it is, route the hose in your sleeping bag. Keep the hose away from the tent edge otherwise you may be breathing super cold air (depending on your weather).

It really is not convenient, but it beats sleepless nights.

Wouldn't recommend a generator of any size for backpacking, unless you maybe convert it to propane, then you've got quite a bit of weight to carry around (generator plus propane tank). Obviously wouldn't recommend backpacking with gasoline *smile*...you can get a battery, though, that's not heavy, and is compact. The one I used for tent camping from a car was the C-222 CPAP Battery Pack. It would run your CPAP for several days, maybe a week without a heated humidifier or heated tubing, but most likely not two weeks. You could charge it from an inverter in a car, but I'm not sure how well it would charge from a packable solar panel.

Depending on which CPAP you end up packing, you'll need other things, like maybe a dc-dc converter for a ResMed, if your CPAP happens to use the same DC voltage that your battery pack puts out, then a cable with matching plugs.

Just some ideas, sounds like you're still in the idea phase at this point, so a little early to commit to power when you don't know which CPAP you're going to use.

Thanks so much for the ideas

Greg

Cavmdc wrote:Only a few days at a time. Usually along the A T in Va

Ok, this narrows it down a bit since you will be carrying all the gear and I assume you do not want to carry a generator, gas can, car battery, etc. etc.

I would look into a portable battery pack like these https://www.cpap.com/cpap-battery-power ... attery.php (Note, I don't own one so can't comment on ease of use, length of charge, etc.). I think you can get maybe five nights out of them. As to a solar panel. I think it been discussed (search for "solar") but if I remember correctly the time needed to charge the battery was very long and if you are hiking all day there would not be enough time charge the battery before the sun went down.

Chris

Ok, thanks

Cavmdc, as you've probably figured out by now lightweight and easy to backpack and inexpensive are mutually exclusive. Regardless which CPAP you take with you, I'm sure in order to do what you want you will have to run the humidifier in unheated mode to minimize power draw, and buy a pricey Li-on battery to run it. For instance, the Resmed battery pack for the S9 is $699 at CPAP.com. So don't get discouraged when all this hits home, but keep looking for the solution that works for you. Sadly, what probably has been inexpensive recreation, now is not quite so.

It's true that the ResMed Li-ion battery is very expensive, which led to me find a better battery pack at 1/2 the price, and this one is even less:

http://www.bestcpapprice.com/Compact-Po ... p_516.html

$300 for a battery is a major investment, but it should last for a while. On the other hand, warm and light sleeping bags backpacks, etc. already aren't cheap, either.

RogerSC wrote:On the other hand, warm and light sleeping bags backpacks, etc. already aren't cheap, either.

Yeah, I kind of wondered about that when I made that comment about inexpensive. I guess that's why when I go camping with my brothers and nephews I use a 30 yr old canvas tent, a foam slab, and pillow, blankets, and quilts, from home! But then, blankets make it easier to adjust bedding to fit the temp, and in the Idaho mountains in the summer than can vary a lot through a day and week.