can you change the leak threshold time that tells your machine to shut off?

[dogsarelife]

My aircurve 10S has been shutting off due to leaks. It's not power issues or a pet walking around or anything, because shutoffs hae been happening at random times for the last couple of nights, after leaks are supposedly going sky high. I don't know if I trust the leak rates reported as
a) I never had any leaks until recently and
b) previously leaks would always wake me up, so I question how these leaks can be this bad and I'm not waking up from them. I mouth tape if I'm trying out other masks besides the full face, but mostly I am still using the full face.

My question: Is there anyway to fix this by messing within the machine software? i.e. change the leak threshold that is programmed in the machine to trigger a shut off? I understand if people didn't monitor therapy with Resscan, etc. why the leak threshold exists, but it seems pointless if I monitor my therapy via the software.

[LSAT]

Do you have the Smart Start feature turned on? If so, turn it off. With Smart Start, the unit starts when you put on the mask and start breathing...It stops when you take off the mask. With large leaks, it may think you have taken off the mask.

[Pugsy]

You cannot change anything within the machine software in terms of large leak threshold limits.
The best you can do is as LSAT said...turn off SmartSense so the machine won't make the mistake of thinking you aren't attached when a big leak is happening BUT.....it takes a really, really big leak for SmartSense to make that mistake and that big of a leak could very well be impacting the effectiveness of the therapy and I wouldn't be so quick to turn it off myself. Just because we can sleep through a big leak doesn't mean we should just ignore it if it is that big and happening often.

[dogsarelife]

Do you have the Smart Start feature turned on? If so, turn it off. With Smart Start, the unit starts when you put on the mask and start breathing...It stops when you take off the mask. With large leaks, it may think you have taken off the mask.

Thanks LSAT for the response. this unit actually has had Smart Start greyed out to off since I got it, even when I go into the jail-broken menu, so I'm pretty sure that's not the issue.

Edited to Add that Smart Start has always been off, no matter whether Leak Alert is on or off

[D.H.]

You can disable the "auto off" feature. If you do that, the machine stays on until you turn it off.

[dogsarelife]

You cannot change anything within the machine software in terms of large leak threshold limits.
The best you can do is as LSAT said...turn off SmartSense so the machine won't make the mistake of thinking you aren't attached when a big leak is happening BUT.....it takes a really, really big leak for SmartSense to make that mistake and that big of a leak could very well be impacting the effectiveness of the therapy and I wouldn't be so quick to turn it off myself. Just because we can sleep through a big leak doesn't mean we should just ignore it if it is that big and happening often.

Thanks Pugsy. In looking at my sleepyhead, you can see that the machine is dumb - it doesn't matter how big of a leak (the first leak session was nearly twice as big (111 L/min) as the second leak session (58 L/min)) - so it seems that to the machine it only matters how long the leak goes on. In reviewing my data, it seems like the user has 18 minutes to switch positions or adjust the mask or whatever and get the leak under control, but then past 18 minutes, the machine shuts off, and in my opinion it would be better for the user to have too little pressure than no pressure at all.

So maybe I wouldn't even want to change the leak threshold, but the amount of time before the machine goes off? Just seems like dumb programming to me.

[Pugsy]

Go into the clinical setup menu area and look for a setting choice called "leak alert" or something to that effect.
Turn it off.
Then you should have the ability to access SmartSense option and turn it off.
SmartSense isn't available with the "leak alert" feature on the AirCurve machines turned on.

Before any of you AirSense 10 users start asking....leak alert is NOT available on the AirSense models.

[palerider]

My aircurve 10S has been shutting off due to leaks.

You change the shut off threshold by setting the mask type, full face is less sensitive and pillows is more sensitive.

Later down, you say that your machine has SmartStart turned off.

In that case, your machine is *NOT* shutting off due to leaks, it's something else.

[palerider]

You cannot change anything within the machine software in terms of large leak threshold limits.
The best you can do is as LSAT said...turn off SmartSense so the machine won't make the mistake of thinking you aren't attached when a big leak is happening BUT.....it takes a really, really big leak for SmartSense to make that mistake and that big of a leak could very well be impacting the effectiveness of the therapy and I wouldn't be so quick to turn it off myself. Just because we can sleep through a big leak doesn't mean we should just ignore it if it is that big and happening often.

Thanks Pugsy. In looking at my sleepyhead, you can see that the machine is dumb - it doesn't matter how big of a leak (the first leak session was nearly twice as big (111 L/min) as the second leak session (58 L/min)) - so it seems that to the machine it only matters how long the leak goes on.

There's no such timer.

There may be something wrong with your machine, *OR* there are other factors in play.

[dogsarelife]

My aircurve 10S has been shutting off due to leaks.

You change the shut off threshold by setting the mask type, full face is less sensitive and pillows is more sensitive.

Later down, you say that your machine has SmartStart turned off.

In that case, your machine is *NOT* shutting off due to leaks, it's something else.

Thanks PR, appreciate these responses. I'm gonna let it run while I'm not on it and see how long it takes to shut off, if at all.

I don't think it'll happen because I've never had an issue with the machine shutting off when I've taken a 3 hour nap, even when I had big leaks with a nasal pillow -type mask /setting the machine to nasal pillow. but we will see.

And thanks Pugsy for replying - I kind of altered my response above after realizing it was unclear the first time around that my machine has never had Smart Start activated.

Guess the aliens decided to visit me and randomly shut my machine off in the middle of the night. oh joy.

[LSAT]

Ho w about a quick power interruption during the night?

[palerider]

I'm thinking some sort of shield to cover the power button.

[dogsarelife]

update: I decided to use my backup machine, an Autoset 10 for a night to make I could get a good night of sleep, with the setting changed to full face mask so leaks wouldn't shut me down. and the machine shut off again! Curious. that told me it wasn't necessarily an aircurve 10 issue then.

I went back to the aircurve 10. Slept on it fine for a night for 8 straight hours Monday night. but then the aircurve 10 shut off tonight. Aliens?

<plays x-files intro>

Well, thanks to my experiment with changing to the AutoSet 10, I realized that the only common thing to both setups was the battery. When I temporarily switched to the AutoSet 10, I had changed out the machine but used the same power supply unit for both.

Thus I felt the power supply part after the most recent AirCurve 10 shutdown. It felt uncharacteristically hot when I touched it. That's not normal, right? I mostly assume the power supply part does what it's supposed to do so I haven't ever touched it before but it didn't seem right to me.

the clinician manual says the power supply part is supposed to last 2 years, but I guess it's possible that for whatever reason mine has not lasted as long as its promised life.

I do wonder if there's anything I've done to mess with that power supply part, like humidity settings or something. Any good tips on making sure it doesn't overheat?

Anyway thanks LSAT, PR, Pugsy for your helpful responses which guided me toward figuring things out. I feel fairly sure this was the underlying issue, but I was being thrown off by the fact that I was playing around with new masks and mask settings at the same time and that this problem was so intermittent.

I had lost about 10 hours of xpap sleep from this random shutdown issue in the last week and was really starting to feel the effect on my anxiety, and also the creeping fatigue/ overall level of sleepiness was starting to drive me bananas, so I appreciate you all from the bottom of my heart. Community problem solving for the win!

EDITED TO ADD: changed out the word "battery" for the more technical term power supply part/ brick

[palerider]

What battery?

[Pugsy]

What battery?

Yeah, I was scratching my head on that one too.
Probably is talking about the power brick. They can go bad but I thought that when they did it was a permanent funeral and no coming back to life.
But then what I understand about power stuff would fit on my little fingernail.

To the OP....nothing you could have done to the power brick to harm it unless you repeatedly beat it against the wall or something.
Just unlucky...swap out the power bricks and cords and see if that resolves your issue.
Check cords carefully to make sure no loose wires or frayed anything.
That brick can go bad. It isn't a common occurrence though. Just happens.