UPS and/or line conditioner for VPAP Adapt SV

[Oldern]

What are you folks who use ResMed Adapt SV or similar machine doing to protect your machine from spikes and/or brownouts in your power supply?

I have been told or I read something about sine wave properties in UPS perhaps dependent upon machine. If UPS is inordinately expensive is there an alternative line conditioner product?

Thanks for a quick response.
Oldern

[LinkC]

I have a $10 surge protector from Lowes plugged into the wall. My machine plugs into that.

If the power goes out, I will wake up, take off the mask and sleep sitting up until the power comes back. (Hasn't happened in my nearly 4 yrs of CPAP...)

[LoQ]

Conditioned power is always expensive, and the better the power, the more expensive it is. You can buy power condidtioners for home theater systems that cost over $100,000. They look like fancy power strips.

Instead of asking for less expensive, a better attack might be to figure out how much conditioning is adequate, and then find that in some product. If you choose the minimum conditioning, you'll get the lowest price. I'm thinking that a UPS is going to be on the cheap side of things, so if you can't afford that, then the simple surge protector described by LinkC might be your best plan.

[GumbyCT]

Or to build or buy a battery pack and simply run it off DC. JBF has a post on here describing (in detail) how he made his.

[JohnBFisher]

Exactly.

You can read more in the following post:

viewtopic.php?t=49115

If you use a modified sine wave inverter, you will need to NOT use the humidifier with the VPAP Adapt SV. That's what I do. If power goes out, I just plug the machine into the modified sine wave inverter, turn off the humidifier and go back to sleep. When I awaken, if power has returned, I plug the unit back into the wall.

If you use a pure sine wave inverter (much more expensive and uses much more of the battery power), then you can run the humidifier.

Frankly, for a day or two, I can do without the humidifier.

Though a UPS works, it can not sustain use for a long amount of time. In my case, about once a year power goes out. When it does, it goes out for a day or so. That's too long for my VPAP Adapt SV, which often has to increase the pressure upto 25cm H2O. And that uses power. So, the battery backup unit seemed to make the most sense.

The battery backup unit lasts four to five years. I've used one for a long time and had no problems. But you need to realize that even a UPS unit includes a lead acid battery that could have problems.

So, hope that helps.

[westom]

I have a $10 surge protector from Lowes plugged into the wall. My machine plugs into that.

Read its box. It does not do line conditioning. Even I would happily make that claim to increase my profits at your expense. Because it is legal. If you ignore the numbers, then you deserve to be scammed. Many power conditioners for $hundreds are nothing more than the same circuit inside that $10 protector. Many $hundreds for a line conditioner that says right there in its specs: it is only the same $10 protector circuit.

A surge protector does nothing until 120 volts rises well above 300 volts. Again, the let-through voltage number is on its box. It also does not claim to protect from another type of transient. A type that actually does damage; that can easily exceed thousands of volts. While a transient may cause 350 volts between the two AC wires (across the protector), that same current can also create thousands of volts across the CPAP.

Such transients are rare. Maybe once every seven years (more frequent in FL). Informed homeowners earth one 'whole house' protector for about $1 per protected appliance. So that this rare and actually destructive transient dissipates harmlessly outside the building. So that a furnace, air conditioner, CPAP, and even smoke detectors have ‘real world’ protection. What most needs protection during this typically destructive transient? Smoke detectors.

So many line conditioners are snake oil. Anyone can claim most anything subjectively or in color glossy sales brochures. Lying there is legal. Only place lying is illegal is in numeric specs. If you did not read them, or if you took another's subjective and speculative advice as valid, then you deserve to be scammed. Listen to others to learn where to look for facts. And no nothing until you have facts with numbers.

First decide what you want to solve. Second, those numeric specs must claim to solve it.

‘Dirty’ electricity takes many forms. Bad power factor, brownouts, surge currents, harmonics, noise, excessive voltage, and floating ground are just a few. No magic box solves all. Some can be addressed at the appliance. But only place that all can be solved is at the service entrance. Meanwhile, a power strip protector only claims to protect from transients that are already made irrelevant inside a CPAP. And sometimes can make that damage easier.