Power outages

[Hawthorne]

We have been having occassional power outages during a heatwave that has lasted for over a week now. What do folks with Sleep Apnea do if the power goes out during the night? What happens? If the power is out when one goes to bed is there a problem with sleeping one night without the CPAP?

[OwlCreekObserver]

We have been having occassional power outages during a heatwave that has lasted for over a week now. What do folks with Sleep Apnea do if the power goes out during the night? What happens? If the power is out when one goes to bed is there a problem with sleeping one night without the CPAP?

We get outages here from time to time. If it's more than just a quick off/on situation, I wake up pretty quickly and remove my mask. I lasted a lot of years without cpap and I figure a night or two without it is sort of like the days I've forgotten to take my blood pressure or cholesterol meds. It isn't a desirable situation, but probably not a show-stopper either.

OCO

[jum001]

I have a related concern. The literature for my Ultra Mirage full face mask says there isn't enough of oxygen to breathe unless the machine is running. Is there some sort of alarm in the machine to wake a sound sleeper if the power fails? If not, do you go peacefully like the miners who run out of air? Should there be a battery back up added to the machine or is there one there already and I just haven't figure it out? I am very new to this but have not een using the system if thunderstorms are forecast.

[communilink]

I have my machine on a battery backup system just like I do my computers. I figure if it will run my computer system for 30 minutes it will run my CPAP for longer then that

Pretty cheap when you get them on sale at CompUSA. I think I paid 39.95 for my 300av system

Don

[MandoJohnny]

communilink:

I am "electrical-engineering calculation" impaired. Have you ever done a estimate on how long that battery backup would power a CPAP? If not, I know there are a couple of electrical-industry pros on this site. What say you?

[rested gal]

LINKS to Battery operation, camping, power outage

That clickable link has additional interesting discussions about battery backups.

[HP]

I obtained a 9 ampere-hour sealed lead-acid 12 volt battery to experiment.

I have a Respironics APAP set for 8.5-10 cm-h20, and it has a separate 12 vdc input jack. I found that the measured average dc current was about 1.5 amperes. I also found that the fully charged battery would keep me going for 6 hours before the battery was essentially discharged. When my apap detects battery discharge, it beeps for a time and immediately shuts the air supply down. Even without the beep signal, I have found that I wake up as soon as the airflow is shut down. Since I use a nasal mask, I immediately start breathing through my mouth. If I instead used a full face mask, I believe I would still wake up, but I haven't experimented with that.

It's generally recommended that you use a deep discharge battery (like a marine battery) to handle the operation of this sort. It's often recommended that you do not discharge the battery much more than 50% before you charge it again, if you want to increase its useful life.

If your cpap/apap has a separate dc input, I would disconnect the heated humidifier if provided and use at least a 25 ampere-hour battery to power the cpap/apap by night, and recharge it during the day.

The UPS units are often not rated in ampere-hours so you will need to get help or learn how to relate their rating to a simple ampere-hour rating. Remember, the ampere hour rating divided by the average ampere load will give you the theoretical use time before the battery discharges 100%. You want to double the ampere hour rating you need to preserve the life of the internal battery. UPS units are generally more expensive than simply purchasing a battery and a relatively inexpensive battery charger.

If your cpap does not have a separate dc input, then you need to consider connecting an inverter between the cpap and the battery. But in this case, you will need to boost the ampere hour rating of the battery because inverters rob extra power from the battery. You should also check to be sure the inverter is of a decent quality because some cpap's are sensitive about the quality of the ac voltage applied in this case. UPS units have inverters built in so that a cpap can be plugged right in.

[Paul B]

Thanks RG for the links, very helpful, as always.

[jum001]

Thank you for the information. I've been reading your posts and have learned so much. When I was first diagnosed, I didn't even know there were different types of machines or the various makes of masks. Now I at least know what questions to ask.