M Series Humidifier redesign

Nodzy · Post by **Nodzy** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:24 am

Carol,
Fixed income? Mine seems to be broken and in need of being fixed. I mean.... repaired.

Nodzy

sleepie · Post by **sleepie** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:18 am

why would it cost us anything???---they have admitted they have a problem with water damage and are making a repair to fix the problem---i think a voluntary recall is in order to fix us up---or an involuntary recall due to water damage

BigGayBert · Post by **BigGayBert** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:23 am

Usually, a company will only recall a product if it poses a safety hazard. If it causes damage to property, or even the machine itself, we are just out of luck (unless the product is still under warranty). Sucks but that's our legal system for you.

dieselgal · Post by **dieselgal** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:23 am

That tiny little thing is the humidifier??? That doesn't look like it would hold a cup! How much does it hold?
Also...are all new machines being sold with the new design tank? I am considering a M series Auto with A flex right now.

Nodzy · Post by **Nodzy** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:29 am

dieselgal wrote:That tiny little thing is the humidifier??? That doesn't look like it would hold a cup! How much does it hold?
Also...are all new machines being sold with the new design tank? I am considering a M series Auto with A flex right now.

dieselgal,
If you do order one... be certain to tell them you want ONLY one with the new porting design on the tank.... the round, staggered flow ports.

Nodzy

6PtStar · Post by **6PtStar** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:51 am

Nodzy wrote: If you do order one... be certain to tell them you want ONLY one with the new porting design on the tank.... the round, staggered flow ports.

That might be a problem for a while. I just noticed cpap.com has 858 in stock and I will bet they won't let them return them for the new model. May be a while until the new model filters down to us!

Jerry

bap40 · Post by **bap40** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:37 am

Since I just got a "new" M series A/flex, I went and checked the water chamber and it is not stagered as reported on the board for the newer fixed design. I have not had any problems with overflow. I am very, very carefull when putting it in and out. I have not taken apart the chamber to clean as of yet either. It sounds like the putting back together again can cause the thing to leak around the seals. Is this right?

dieselgal · Post by **dieselgal** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:24 am

I think I will just wait to buy then. I don't want to buy a problem if I can help it.

xyz · Post by **xyz** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 11:21 am

> In this M-series modification-of-design phase, did they attempt or even bother to attempt to remedy the missing data problem?

Nodzy, that's in a separate and independent piece of equipment. Which is why, and how, many people use other brands of humidifiers. It's separate from the machine.

I haven't had my Auto M all that long (and, yeah, my humidifier is already out of date), but I haven't had the data card problem yet. I read about it here in this forum with interest. I am guessing that there is _more than one reason_ that these problems occur.

Certainly one could be that Respironics has some sort of problem. The question then is whether it could be solved with a new firmware version (it's displayed at startup time) or not. And if it could, how the update would occur. I can't see the penny-pinching DMEs volunteering to do it (time is money). Not that most of them have computer competent employees anyway. Plus they could have a liability issue if it was done wrong. And us shipping our machines back to Respironics would involve more time and money. If you don't have a backup machine it wouldn't be possible. I don't see any of this happening.

There are other non-Respironics-related possibilities too. Is it possible to put the card back into the machine wrong (either backwards (wrong end first) or the wrong side facing you)? With tens of thousands of sleep-deprived customers each putting the card back, some of us daily, even a one in a ten thousand possibility means it could occur lots of times.

A more likely possibility is the common problem with PCs of removing read/writeable media at the wrong time. This is a common problem with flash drives, the flash cards that you use in cameras, etc., and even bigger gear like GPSs. It's not uncommon that people corrupt their flash memory devices by removing it at the wrong time. 1 in 10,000 = lots of times.

> That tiny little thing is the humidifier??? That doesn't look like it would hold a cup! How much does it hold?

I'd estimate about 1.25 cups. I read here about people running it dry overnight, but I haven't experienced that, even on the high setting (5). I now usually run it on 3 or 4. The problem with the current (now old) design that I've had is that to get the water up to the "full" mark (which is on the side of the humidifier) it nearly spills out of the two holes.

> If you do order one... be certain to tell them you want ONLY one with the new porting design

_Very_ good point. Looking at the Respironics webpages, it's not clear that there is a part number change for the new model.

Nodzy · Post by **Nodzy** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:19 pm

xyz,
Yep, you're right that many problems can occur to cause data loss or corruption due to human error.

However, many here before us experienced several forms of the M-series "data missing" problem, and those weren't due to human error. I, for one, spent many days assessing the problem and reporting it to Respironics. Naturally, they blew me off after I sent them .pdf's showing several variations of the problem. Every so often, all of part of the reporting of one or two nights of therapy would be missing from a data download to Encore.

It could be the firmware, card writer, the smartcards, or a combination of any two or more. Since the M-series problem occurs with Encore Pro and Encore Viewer (which was supposedly all new code) one can assume that the software should not be the problem. Yet, it could be involved... possibly.

Regardless of where the the problem stems from... I have to seriously question the accuracy and consistency of the M-series therapy algorithms... if they can't achieve accuracy and conistency in the reporting hardware + firmware + card + software combination. Sure, that's another ballgame. BUT... it's direly important to the patients and their med-handlers to have access to 100-percent complete and accurate data for every therapy session.

After all, xPAP therapy falls into the Life Support category... whether we, or our med-handlers, want to believe so or not.

Oh well...

Nodzy

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:15 pm

Ok, a little update here, I just got off the phone with Respironics support.

Here are the part numbers for the different chambers.

Part #

1003757 This is the old style one with the square none staggered tubing, it does have the "NEW" seal and black easy release latch.

1003758 This is the new style with the staggered tubing with the round seals, it also has the "NEW" seal and black easy release latch.

1003756 This is the one that surprised me. This is a kit that includes BOTH tops, one with the old style square seals and one with the new style round seals and a bottom, this also has the new seal and the black easy release latch.

Anyway, that's all i have for now.

dieselgal · Post by **dieselgal** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:08 am

Ok, I am confused. I just called Cpap.com and got the lady to give me the part number for just the tank for the humidifier and the number she gave me is 1003757. She said they fixed the leaking problem over a year ago. So what's really going on?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:54 am

Dieselgal,

Yes the leaky "teal" colored seal which was on the first design of the humidifier chamber was fixed some time ago. Like I said earlier in the thread, this redesign of the actual humidifier AND the humidifier chamber was an attempt to prevent water from getting back into the CPAP machine itself, NOT to address a leaky humidifier chamber.

The new humidifier chambers that came out to fix the leaky seal have a square shaped, black colored latch on the end. The part number that CPAP.com quoted you is from the old humidifier design. This is not a bad thing, I have the old design humidifier and have never had a problem spilling water back into my CPAP machine. If you are carefull while reinserting the water chamber back into the humidifier you shouldn't have a problem with the old design humidifier.

rested gal · Post by **rested gal** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:01 pm

dieselgal wrote:Ok, I am confused. I just called Cpap.com and got the lady to give me the part number for just the tank for the humidifier and the number she gave me is 1003757. She said they fixed the leaking problem over a year ago. So what's really going on?

The leak problem the woman at cpap.com is probably thinking about was wayyyy back after the M series machines first came out and many of the first M humidifiers were leaking all over the place. New water chambers were eventually issued to supposedly fix that original problem.

As I understand it from what akcpapguy said, the newest M humidifier is a total redesign of not only the water chamber, but the whole humidifier...platform and all.

It sounds to me like you can't just buy the "newest" new water chamber and have it work with your original M humidifier platform. You'd have to buy an entire new M humidifier (chamber and platform.) The whole humidifier, in other words. But I may have misunderstood what akcpapguy wrote.

Personally, I'd skip buying an M humidifier - old or new. I'd buy just the M machine itself and then buy a separate F&P heated humidifier. Tried and true, reliable, holds more water than most, heats better than most integrated humidifiers, can be turned on before the machine is started if you want to preheat the water, and best of all... can be used with any brand/model machine. There are lots of reasons to love the separate Fisher & Paykel HC 150 heated humidifier!

dieselgal · Post by **dieselgal** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:48 pm

Rested Gal I think that is what I am going to do. The only reason I considered getting the integrated humidifier is so I can use it when I travel as well, but I don't want some leak issues.

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M Series Humidifier redesign

Recalls