Night without power

makezmuzic · Post by **makezmuzic** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 12:29 am

Hello Barbara, Columbia City here. Thank you for posting this question. When did your power come back? Ours went off around midnight and came back yesterday in the afternoon. I was not prepared for the storm either. This is my 1st yar of being completely dependant on my CPAP and oxygen. I'm not going tolet myself get caught like that again. I've also just lost my medical coverage, so I didnt even have any air tanks stockpiled. If hte power had stayed off one more night I would have had to go to HArborview to spent the night. Thats what 911 told me to do. 911, the fire dept, red cross, the crisis center. They all told me to monitor my oxygen while I slept and if I stopped breathing while I was sleeping , I was to call 911.

I will never, let myself get into situation like that again. Next month, it will be all top ramin and cereal because I am buying a marine battery!!! Sitting up all night, setting my phone alarm to wake me every hour to change tanks is not an option.

Again, thanks for posting this question. I'm a newbee here. I've hear about the site and am glad to have found it. Especially now. I've used a CPAP for 3 years, but its only been recently that I have been dependant on it. My most recent test showed that my setting of 7 wasn't good enough. I stopped breathing around 98 times. Thats probably not too bad, but its enough to make me comply to using it. They upped my rate to 10. They wanted me to come in and do another sleep study there at the hospital, but I couldn't afford it. They weren't sure if 10 was high enough. I could tell that it made a difference.

Anyway, glad you are OK. I thought alot about other people out there who were in the same boat as me, still are. I was surprised Seattle has no services for the disabled in that kind of situation. I called into KIRO radio to ask them to announce services. It might be something I take on finding more about. I joke about being blown off by medical staff, but it really did make me mad. Take care. MM

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milkman · Post by **milkman** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 12:59 am

If you have a remstar classic or M series, in my opinion you are a whole lot better off to run the machine right off the battery-12 volt dc, what the machine uses, rather than using an inverter to convert the battery power to 110 ac and then your power supply converts it back to 12 volt dc. A big waste of battery. I recommend going to Sears for the power supply 1150. It is on sale for $89.99, has a 22 AH battery and built in charger, plus a light and other fun things. It will run a Remstar for at least 2, and up to 4 days, depending on pressure. The respironics battery back is about $300.00 and it only has a 14.4 AH battery. Plus you can also recharge the Sears 1150 off of your car cigarette lighter if need be, just run the car or drive around for an hour or so. You can't do that with the respironics battery pack. Of course the humidifier must be used just as a passover, unheated. Just my 2 cents worth...

Brian in Oregon

blarg · Post by **blarg** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 1:57 am

Only problem with running on straight DC is that the humidifier won't work, but since it's rare, whatever.

Our power never went out up here. My parents' phones went down in Southern Oregon though.

ColoZZZ · Post by **ColoZZZ** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 5:20 pm

Milkman Brian,

This is what I found with a search of Sears-dot-com but there's nothing on the UPS's specs, etc. Is this what you're talking about?

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product. ... Cookie=Yes

Thanks,

--Andy

Snoredog · Post by **Snoredog** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 6:00 pm

Inverters are all fine and dandy but if you need a pure sine wave to run your humidifer you might as well just get a small generator:

I got my EU2000 at Northwest Power tools for $869 (you have to call them for price, Honda won't let them post prices on the net).

I also have a like new Yamaha EF3000iSEB (its for sale) that puts out more power it is also a pure sine wave inverter generator but it kills my back to lift it. When my power goes out I fire up my little EU2000 Honda and it handles refrigerator and small freezer along with machine.

IORHHI · Post by **IORHHI** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:14 pm

Our power went out Thursday evening and came back on Friday morning, but I can still hear our next door neighbor's generator tonight (Monday) so their power must still be down, and the water system's power came on last night so about a quarter of the system was without water Thurs to Sun. The folks at the top of the hill lose water first, and then gradually more people run out as the the water flows down through the pipes without being replenished by pumps or plant.
I can do a night without the humidifier, but not the CPAP.
We're still looking at options. My spice thinks a generator might be nice, since this seems to happen every year. We heat with wood, so we don't freeze but it sure does get dark.
If I buy the Sears thing, can I just plug the CPAP jack into the machine, or do I need some sort of interface connector?
Barbara

milkman · Post by **milkman** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 8:59 pm

Andy,
No, this is what I was talking about:

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product. ... Cookie=Yes

Barbara, yes you just plug it into the cigarette lighter plug on the sears unit.

Brian

milkman · Post by **milkman** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:36 pm

The link doesn't seem to work, here is the description:

DieHard Portable Power 1150 with Air Compressor, DC to AC Inverter, Outlets and Light
Sears item #02871488000 Mfr. model #71488

I've never tried to use the inverter on this model for the humidifier because I know the humidifier takes a lot of juice. I looked in the manual for the M series humidifier and it takes about 200 watts ac. Through the inverter this means the Sears 1150 would run the humidifier for about an hour. The respironics battery pack will run a remstar m series pro cpap for 20 hours (according to cpap.com) and it is 14.4 amp hours. The Sears 1150 is 22 amp hours so it should run an M series pro at a pressure if 15 for nearly 30 hours. Easy to see why people don't bother to run the humidifier.

Mask

Night without power

NW windstorm