Battery for XPAP for Camping - What? How? Where? Help! :-)

[RosemaryB]

Just for comparison purposes, I looked up the Respironics Battery pack. It is 14 lbs and 14.4 amp hours. Here's the tech sheet from the Respironics website:

http://global.respironics.com/UserGuide ... nglish.pdf

cpap.com has a neat calculator on their website for their batteries that show how long you can use a machine at a given pressure on the different batteries that they sell.

https://www.cpap.com/productpage/produc ... andbattery

According to this page, I can run an M-series machine at a pressure of 8 for 27 hours. So, I'm assuming that I can run it on the Xantrex powerpack 400 of 20 amp hours (not the solar one) for 4 nights, if I sleep 7 hours/night. I'm not sure if that would be good for it, to run it all the way down, though.

I'm not sure why they don't have the M-series auto machine listed as an option. The autos presumably use more power. But since I'm using my autopap in cpap mode, it would probably compare to the M series pro with cflex.

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): respironics, cpap.com, cflex, CPAP, auto

[Babette]

Rose, did you buy the 12 volt respironics DC hook up cord thingie. Oh, you know what I mean... Everyone says the battery will run longer if you use the DC hookup, instead of plugging it into the AC.

You said you keep it plugged in at home on a trickle charge. Is that just a setting on the Xantrex, or is that another little item I need to go buy?

Thanks much!
B.

[goose]

The solar charging option is a great option if the charge rate of the panel/charge controller matches or exceeds the draw rate of the machine. It also helps if you live in an area where the sun shines regularly!!

The "guest" makes a very good suggestion in testing it prior to taking it on the road. Running it without charging until it stops a couple times will give you an idea of how long it'll last w/o a charge "in the wild".
If the battery is a standard gel cell, a few charge, discharge cycles will ensure that the battery will accept the max charge for the road trip as well.....(I don't recall if gel cells have "memory" like Nickel Cadmium batteries or not).

Sounds like a plan Babs -- good luck and have fun on your camping trip!!!!!

cheers
goose

[billbolton]

The autos presumably use more power.

When running in APAP mode, in general an auto blower will consume less power, as the 95 precentile point in usually lower than the equivalent tritated pressure for straight CPAP. The blower motor is by far the single largest power consumer in a blower unit, so the power it draws is directly related to the speed it needs to run to deliver the required pressure at any point in time.

The difference in power consumption for the control electronics only between a straight CPAP and an equivalent model APAP machine is very small.

An APAP machine running in straight CPAP mode (with EPR off) will draw pretty much the same energy overall as an equivalent CPAP only model. Having EPR on will probably reduce the energy consumption in CPAP mode a little compared to having EPR off.

Even on a simple, straight CPAP machine, like a Resmed S8 Lightweight/Escape/Compact (which as no EPR), there is a noticeable reduction in energy consumption between inhalation and exhalation. Here are some actual power consumption measurements I made when designing my battery pack for an S8 Lightweight running on a 12V DC supply....

14cm, Sea Level, Outlet Open - 16.08 Watts
14cm, Sea Level, Outlet Blocked - 8.69 Watts
14cm, Sea Level, HC405 Mask, inhale - 10.78 Watts
14cm, Sea Level, HC405 Mask, exhale - 9.32 Watts
14cm, Sea Level, HC405 Mask, breathing avg - 10.05 Watts
14cm, Sea Level, HC405 Mask, holding breath - 9.93 Watts

Cheers,

Bill

[gasp]

Okay, I wanna go camping again. Do I REALLY have to buy a $300 specialized battery setup for my xpap?

I know I can get a top of the line deep cycle battery right over here at the sporting goods store for about $160.00. I know this, because I bought one for my ex-boyfriend for Xmas one year. He runs about 17 police/emergency radios in his truck.

Say I went and bought one.... How do I hook it up to the XPAP? What other parts and pieces do I need? Is there a set of instructions somewhere on how to do this? I really CANNOT rely on the ex-boyfriend for help.

Or.... Do you feel that buying a specialized $300 battery has worked better for you?

AND... If I buy that specialized battery, how do I recharge it while out camping?

I sorta know about re-charging car batteries with a battery charger. But can I recharge a deep cycle by jumping it to my car battery? Would that work?

Any suggestions gratefully appreciated!!!!!

Many thanks!
Barbara

Hubby says a good (lots of charge storage) deep cycle would probably last you for a week. You won't be gone that long right? : ) The workshop we went to had nice small batteries and I think one was a lot less than $300 but was only good for a couple of nights - should I go find the info?

[Snoredog]

I think you would be money ahead just to put a trailer hitch on your car and use this generator:

[RosemaryB-guested]

Rose, did you buy the 12 volt respironics DC hook up cord thingie. Oh, you know what I mean... Everyone says the battery will run longer if you use the DC hookup, instead of plugging it into the AC.

You said you keep it plugged in at home on a trickle charge. Is that just a setting on the Xantrex, or is that another little item I need to go buy?

Thanks much!
B.

I only got the 12 volt cord that plugs into the cigarette lighter socket, but didn't get the second one that you attach to a regular battery (cord with jumper cable clamps on the end). This is because the Xantrex has a cigarette lighter socket outlet on it.

The trickle charger hookup comes with the Xantrex, no second purchase necessary for it.

[Guest]

Hi, it's me. The Forum won't let me log in as Babette... Gosh knows WHY, since I can't get in touch with the forum admins....

So....

Gasp - thanks, no, we've already got those batteries listed here in this thread.

Snoredog - DEFINITELY need one of those...

Rose - I think you just sold me a Xantrex! That was exactly what I wanted to hear.

Thanks all!
Barbara/Babette