S9 Battery pack advice wanted

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KathyJL
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S9 Battery pack advice wanted

Post by KathyJL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:54 pm

Who would have thought that finding a battery pack for the S9 would be so complicated and/or expensive? Sheesh!

I've spent a lot of time going through posts on this topic, and I'm still not clear as to what will be the best for me. Here's my situation:
1) Car camper. I've used a giant B&D battery pack in the past, but now it's dead dead. I need something that will get me through 2 nights ideally or 1 night if I can recharge with car cigarette outlet.
2) Overseas flier. I plan to use my cpap and battery on an overseas trip next year. So, the battery needs to be fairly small/compact/reasonable weight.
*I have Resmed Autoset S9, no humidifier, Pressure=8, ramp and EPR on.

My needs seem simple, but apparently only if I want to spend a fortune on a battery pack.

I can't tell what I would need or how much it would cost to make any of the below capable of charging on car cigarette outlet.

My research thus far:
1) Resmed PowerStation II Kit: $675.
2) C-Battery Pack for S9 Machines: $350.
3) Medistrom Pilot 24: $329.
4) Lightweight CPAP Battery Pack on website I cannot mention: $280.
5) PowerAdd Pilot Pro 32000...$130. I can't tell if this works with S9 and if additional parts are needed.

If you use one of the above (or another not mentioned), please comment!!
Daily user of CPAP since 2009.
Use very low humidity or pass through.
Slightly heated hose. Hose cozy.
Masks: Alternate between N30i, Aloha, Tap Pap, & occasional BleepSleep.

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chunkyfrog
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Re: S9 Battery pack advice wanted

Post by chunkyfrog » Sat Aug 01, 2015 5:28 pm

Resmed machines run on 24 volts DC with a proprietary plug.
Otherwise, you can use an inverter for 110 volts AC, and plug in like at home.
The blower alone needs a minimum of 30 watts, and the blower with heated humidifier needs at least 90 watts.
As others have pointed out, using an inverter is inefficient, and will waste considerable power.

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KathyJL
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Location: California

Re: S9 Battery pack advice wanted

Post by KathyJL » Sun Aug 02, 2015 10:59 am

chunkyfrog wrote:Resmed machines run on 24 volts DC with a proprietary plug.
Otherwise, you can use an inverter for 110 volts AC, and plug in like at home.
The blower alone needs a minimum of 30 watts, and the blower with heated humidifier needs at least 90 watts.
As others have pointed out, using an inverter is inefficient, and will waste considerable power.
Thanks for your reply, chunkyfrog. So, do you use a battery pack? And if so, which one? Do you like it?
I'm not electrically-savvy, so I'm not sure exactly what an inverter is. Is that the cigarette plug you are referring to?
Daily user of CPAP since 2009.
Use very low humidity or pass through.
Slightly heated hose. Hose cozy.
Masks: Alternate between N30i, Aloha, Tap Pap, & occasional BleepSleep.

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RogerSC
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Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2012 1:11 pm

Re: S9 Battery pack advice wanted

Post by RogerSC » Sun Aug 02, 2015 4:02 pm

I use a Li-ion battery pack with my S9, along with a ResMed 12v to 24v DC converter. Don't know if this battery pack is still available, but it was expensive a couple of years ago (~$300):

http://www.thecpapshop.com/c-222-cpap-battery-pack

When I'm using the battery, I use the humidifier in "passive" mode...put water in it, but didn't turn on the heat so that the air from the cpap to my mask just passed over the water. And did not use the climateline hose, just the regular slimline hose with a hose snugglie *smile*. This battery pack ran my cpap for 3 nights with a lot to spare. Probably would have gone for about a week of tent camping without recharging.

I also have an inverter, but not for running the cpap. The inverter is used for running the battery charger in the car, but haven't needed it yet.

I'm seeing battery packs that are a little less capable and don't last quite as long. The fact that they don't last as long as the one that I have isn't an issue, if you can charge them along the way using an inverter in your vehicle, depending on how long you''re camping. Like this one:

http://www.thecpapshop.com/c-100-cpap-battery-pack

A battery solution is confusing and expensive. I'm happy with the solution that I have, it has served me well. You'll find all kind of approaches, from using a deep-cycle marine battery to car jump-starters in various threads here. Just make sure that what you end up with has "deep-cycle" characteristics, not like a car battery that's made for putting out a lot of current in a surge and is charged the rest of the time. Deep-cycle means that it is made to deliver a given amount of power over a longer period of time, rather than a lot of power all at one time.

For me, I was willing to pay more to have the lighter, smaller Li-ion battery pack, but your decision may be different *smile*.

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palerider
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Re: S9 Battery pack advice wanted

Post by palerider » Sun Aug 02, 2015 5:27 pm

KathyJL wrote: so I'm not sure exactly what an inverter is. Is that the cigarette plug you are referring to?
an INVERTER (in this context) plugs into a cigarette lighter, or clips to a 12v battery, and makes 120volt AC that you can plug stuff into, like you do plugging into the wall outlets at the house.

a better way is to get a CONVERTER, (for resmed) that directly converts the 12v battery to the 24volt that resmed machines need.

each time you change voltages, you lose a bit due to the conversion not being 100% efficient, so it's better to convert from 12 to 24 (one step) than to invert from 12 to 120, and then use your regular adapter to go from 120 to 24. (two steps)

make sense?

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Duke3rn
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Re: S9 Battery pack advice wanted

Post by Duke3rn » Fri May 06, 2016 3:29 pm

Kathy, I am wondering if you came up with a solution? I am also on the hunt for a cpap battery for my air sense 10 as I do a lot of dry camping. I'm really interested in the pilot-24 for many reasons but it seems so new that not a lot of people have used it. The main things I would need to know is whether it can be charged while driving through the inverter and how long the overall charge will last. I have an RV with an onboard generator so if not driving during the day it can be charged easily enough. I'm a new user with settings 4-10 for pressure. Machine is the Airsense 10 Autoset for Her....

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CapnLoki
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Re: S9 Battery pack advice wanted

Post by CapnLoki » Fri May 06, 2016 4:37 pm

Duke3rn wrote:Kathy, I am wondering if you came up with a solution? I am also on the hunt for a cpap battery for my air sense 10 as I do a lot of dry camping. I'm really interested in the pilot-24 for many reasons but it seems so new that not a lot of people have used it. The main things I would need to know is whether it can be charged while driving through the inverter and how long the overall charge will last. I have an RV with an onboard generator so if not driving during the day it can be charged easily enough. I'm a new user with settings 4-10 for pressure. Machine is the Airsense 10 Autoset for Her....
You're going about this wrong. First, you should get the 12 to 24V converter ($84 at cpap.com) that will allow you to run from any 12V source. If your RV has a deep cycle house bank, it probably has plenty of power to run your pump. The Pilot is about 8 Amp-hours of capacity, while even a small deep cycle (such as a scooter battery) will be 35 Amp-hours. A proper RV (or boat) house battery is around 100 Amp-hours, and its not uncommon to have 2 or 4 of them.

As for recharging, the pilot can be recharged through the cigarette lighter, though you should should get the 12V charger rather than going through an inverter. However it will take 2-3 hours. The RV battery (or standalone deep cycle) can also be charged from the car, but if you fully deplete a large deep cycle it will put a large load on the alternator so you would have to be mindful of wiring and overheating issues. If all you did was was run a cpap without humidity for a day or two there would be no problem charging through the cigarette lighter.

The Pilot-24 is an expensive lightweight lithium pack, designed for airline travel. If weight is not an issue, you'll find that a traditional deep cycle solution is best. Consider the recent thread of a traveler with a faulty Pilot-24 in Singapore - if they had the converter, any 12 volt battery could have gotten them through a night. (We haven't discussed this much, but 8 D-Cells have 50% more power than the PIlot!)

If you give us a bit more info we can certainly find a good solution for you.

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Choosing a Battery thread: http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t1140 ... ttery.html