Battery power for Fisher Paykel ICON + Auto

I have a new F&P Icon Plus Auto Adjust CPAP and was wondering if anyone has used this unit with a battery. I dont think it has a DC input so it would be necesary top use a voltage inverter in order to do this, but I fouind a company advertizing a DC power unit that they claim is compatable with all Icon CPAP models. Here:http://www.directhomemedical.com/long-l ... aykel.html

has anyone had any experience with this?

Yes. 12volt deep cycle marine battery with a modified sine wave inverter. I have been using this combo for almost 4 years for both power outages and camping with my F&P.

This looks like a reasonable battery, but nothing special. It is lead-acid, so its heavy - 13 pounds for 14 Amp-Hours of power. It is available from our site sponsor for a few dollars more, but includes a 400 watt inverter:
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/respir ... ations-tab

Before you select a battery, you have to consider the purpose. Do you want it for one overnight plane ride, where portability is most important? Are you camping, where you need several days of power? Boating or RVing, where weight isn't that important? Home backup where you need it to always be fully charged for an emergency that might last a week? Each situation has a different solution.

For example, for plane travel and hiking you might consider a lithium based battery - 20 Amp-hours and only 5 pounds.
http://www.bestcpapprice.com/Compact-Po ... p_516.html

For a lot less money you can setup a large deep cycle battery, but it won't be very portable. Everyone says it must be "marine," but that just means you could pay more for a cheap battery. "Deep cycle" is the important thing - I use high quality golf cart batteries on my boat, higher quality for half the price. The downside, however, is that deep cycle aren't "maintenance-free" and require watering periodically. The exception are AGM batteries- very nice but expensive.

Thanks for the info. My intention is to use the battery power mainly for camping away from a power source of any kind except maybe a solar trickle charger. My F&P Icon Plus Auto has a "Fight Mode" for "low power consumption". It claims to only draw 75 watts and is designed for "long-haul air flights and camping". The humidity would be significantly reduced, but I would probably turn off the humidifier anyway. I wonder if this 100 watt modifed sine-wave inverter will work. It has 100 watt continuous and 200 watt peak capability and has a USB port to charge my cell phone with. All you would need is a rechargable 12 volt battery for camping.

http://www.ecodirect.com/Samlex-SAM-100 ... 100-12.htm

Ianscpap wrote:Thanks for the info. My intention is to use the battery power mainly for camping away from a power source of any kind except maybe a solar trickle charger. My F&P Icon Plus Auto has a "Fight Mode" for "low power consumption". It claims to only draw 75 watts and is designed for "long-haul air flights and camping". The humidity would be significantly reduced, but I would probably turn off the humidifier anyway. I wonder if this 100 watt modifed sine-wave inverter will work. It has 100 watt continuous and 200 watt peak capability and has a USB port to charge my cell phone with. All you would need is a rechargable 12 volt battery for camping.

http://www.ecodirect.com/Samlex-SAM-100 ... 100-12.htm

OK. First, a bit about power - 75 Watts is actually a fair amount of power. The Respironics series 60 machines, with the heated hose humidifier comes with an 80 Watt supply; without the hose its 60 Watts. But the actual draw is often under 12 Watts (1 Amp) if the humidifier is turned off. I don't even bring a humidifer to my boat, and if you're camping anywhere around Atlanta I doubt you'll need it either. Hopefully, your F&P is just as efficient. Here's ResMed''s guide to power usage:
http://www.resmed.com/assets/documents/ ... lo_eng.pdf

For this purpose, batteries are rated by Amp-Hours (AH), although its sometimes hard to find the number. A CPAP with 1 Amp draw will use 8 AH a night. Most battery techonologies are not forgiving of total discharge, so don't assume you can use all of the power before recharging without damage. Quality batteries come with the discharge depth/cycle count chart - for most lead acid batteries it gets grim below 80% discharge. The rule-of-thumb for off-grid users is 50% will give a reasonable long life. This is true for the battery you mention in the first post, which I'm pretty sure is AGM lead-acid.

Inverters are another issue. Every inverter spec says "Up to 90% efficient" but that will be only at one load, at one temperature, on a Thursday. More likely, especially for a $20 unit, it will be 50% to 75%. Recently I measured three small inverters including one that looks like your selection (the West unit):
viewtopic/t95636/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=92 ... 63#p854963
Your selected inverter should work, but really run it with a full night test well before you you take it into the the woods. It might have a noisy fan, and it might not be up to running all night in a harsh environment. Unfortunately, larger, beefier inverters might actually be less efficient at low power loads and high quality inverter could run the price up to where a 12V Respironics pump looks good.

As for solar recharging - just remember that the specs will assume full sunlight, no shading, perfect alightment. I assume my panels will supplement my needs, but I know their output is reduced even by a thin cloud cover, and they're close to useless in heavy overcast.

So, what would I recommend? Two ways to go: if you're "car camping" get a big deep cycle with a trickle charger and solid inverter; if you're hiking in, a lithium lightweight, maybe with solar. Both solutions can do double duty - the first is a good home emergency backup that can be sized to any need; the second is handy for air travel.

Fell free to ask questions - as you can see I can go on about this topic. It comes from living off-grid a month or two every year for about 20 years.

Thanks for the great info CapnLoki. I do have another question for you. As far as I can tell there are 2 types of inverters, pure sine wave and modified sine wave. I have several inverters already, 2 of which are similar to the one I linked to here. I am not sure if they are modified sine wave inverters though. Could they be something else? They were less than $25 for both (at Sams I think) years ago.

Ianscpap wrote:Thanks for the great info CapnLoki. I do have another question for you. As far as I can tell there are 2 types of inverters, pure sine wave and modified sine wave. I have several inverters already, 2 of which are similar to the one I linked to here. I am not sure if they are modified sine wave inverters though. Could they be something else? They were less than $25 for both (at Sams I think) years ago.

I would guess they are modified sine wave, as Pure Sine Wave is expensive. You should check in the F&P manual to see if MSW inverters are approved - they should be good but there are odd restrictions. Some power equipment doesn't like MSW; my microwave doesn't run at full power with MSW, etc. I know one older CPAP can use MSW for the pump but not for the humidifier. Certain electronics that have clocks rely on proper wave form, and inductive motors sometimes need Pure. My coffee grinder works fine on MSW, I have a power drill that doesn't.

Most small equipment nowadays runs on DC power, so the AC ends up being converted back anyways and the remaining MSW issue is a bit of noise that gets filtered by the chokes on the DC power cords.

Frankly, I think of inverters as necessary evil, and go out of my way to find equipment that can run on 12V directly, such as the Respironics CPAPs. The two "travel CPAPs" on the market now seem fundamentally braindead because they require an odd DC voltage, and thus require a proprietary battery.

I have been using a deep cycle and 400W inverter for years. all of a sudden my Fisher and Paykel Icon+ wont work with the inverter!!! Does anyone have any help! I have used different inverters and batteries and it just doesn't light up.

Hi does anyone know how many AMP deep cycle battery I will need to use this machine also how many watt imverter will I need . Thanks

You'll have to be a bit more specific on the machine and how you're using it - do you mean the FP ICON mentioned in the title? What pressure do you run the pump at? Do you need the humidifier? How many days, and does it need to be lightweight?

As for an inverter, the cheapest inverters usually start at 150 Watts which will be enough to power almost any CPAP, even with humidity. Unfortunately, they will be about 60% efficient.

In general, pumps running on inverters use 6 to 10 Amp-hours a night. Humidity can add another 10-20 Ah or more a night. Lead based deep cycle batteries (including most marine and AGM batteries) shouldn't be discharged more than 80% and if you want maximum life its best to stay above half discharged, so that should be factored in. Lithium can be discharged 100%, but these batteries are so expensive they're normally reserved for portable applications. Share some information about your needs and we can be a bit more specific.

I have run an F&P Sleepstyle 200 for 9 years (during camping vacations) off a 103 ah deep cycle battery paired with a 300 wtt pure sine wave inverter with success. Now I have an Icon+ auto pap and my inverter is making clicking noises as soon as I hook it up to the Icon+. The Icon+ does not have to be running, just hooked up. I know that it has a slight draw even while in the off position and there is something in the Icon+ that is not compatible with the inverter.
I paid quite a bit for the inverter and I went for the PSW inverter because I was informed that the humidifyer could burn out when hooke dup to a modified sine wave inverter.

Does anyone have success with a particular inverter, and if so, what is the brand and model?

Thanks for any advice you can give.

I have not run my F&P Icon on battery so I do not have personal experience with this inverter, but there is an online cpap site that says they have tested the Icon with 12V battery and this inverter with no issues:

http://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-PV150- ... r+inverter

I have confirmed that this inverter does not have an internal cooling fan, some other models that do have a fan, the users complain about the fan noise. This model uses thermal convection for cooling - no fan to make noise despite what some of the reviews say on the Amazon page -- those reviews must be for a different model.

Thanks TangledHose. This seems amazing; for this price it must be a very basic inverter....for a machine as advanced as the Icon+? One thing I can say for sure and that is that you'd have to cut off the plug and attach alligator clips so it can be hooked up directly to the battery. The cigarette lighter power port does not supply enough power, I have tried it and even the simpler SleepStyle 200 can't be run unless it's hooked up to the battery.

By the way, the Samlex PSW inverter I have has a cooling fan it it is impossible to hear as the sound of the Icon is considerably louder.

I have found that running of a deep cylce battery located in the engine bay, the cooling fan is needed when the vehicle engine is still warm.

thanks again for your reply.

Here are alligator clips with 12V socket so you don't have to modify anything:

http://www.amazon.com/Roadpro-Battery-C ... y_e_text_y

Have a F&P icon+ novo that I need to take camping. F&P do not provide specs for this machine with battery power use. Need recommendation for deep cycle size for 3-4 days, and good quiet Inverter and trickle charger. The icon uses 75w w/o humidity in airplane mode. All of the post info left me confused, just need a very simple and clear suggestion. Be specific as I have apnea and am dumb.