On the road, need some help

[karl9000]

I'm in my third week on the road as a new trucker. My lead who also uses cpap says that I can't use my humidifier with the truck's onboard 1700 watt inverter. He also said I can't use the humidifier on DC even though I have the dc power supply for the unit. I'm using the Resmed S9 with the attachable humidifier. I sure would like to use the thing. If someone has access to the manual, would you please check it out and reply? Thanks.

[Pugsy]

Do you have the provider manual? If not, you can find it here.
http://www.apneuvereniging.nl/forum/pdf ... manual.pdf

I don't understand electric stuff but several members here do and will be by some time today to offer their thoughts.
About all I know is that when running from strictly a battery there normally isn't enough power available to run the energy hog humidifier and the ResMed machines have special voltage issues... I will let the members who understand this energy issue explain it. I don't even understand it so can't explain it.

Does your truck have an APU?

I think there were some issues with the humidifier on the older machines but not so much with the newer machines.

[stage0]

Ask your cpap supplies supplier about a version of humidifier called a pass-over type. It still humidifies the air but does not useany electricity. It is not as eefficient as the heated type. You will have to have a stable place for it to set and it is abit more messy too.

[herefishy]

I had a passover, still do, but don't put water in it. Aside from being a pain to clean, it worked great.

[prdunson]

I am a truck driver too(Local) I am not a guru in that area i new of a driver at a Schneider that used a cpap in a truck on a inverter,i want to say his was a 1500 watt,but not 100 percent sure ,i found this hope it helps you


What is the Difference Between AC and DC amps? How do I know which size Power Inverter I need?
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
When choosing the right size power inverter people often want to know how to find out what size to buy. Well the answer is in the amps AC or DC. Primarily most household devices give an amp rating on the device or in the owners manual. Usually this information is in AC amps. For example my monitor in my desk uses 1.6 AC amps. Let us this example to run through some conversions. To get to DC amps from AC is a two step process. First we need to find the watts. The formula for this is below.
AC amps x Vac (volts of our AC device) = Watts
1.6 amps x 120 Vac = 192 watts
To find DC amps from Watts we use the formula below.
Watts/Vdc (volts of our DC system) = DC amps
192 watts / 12 Vdc = 16 DC amps
DC amps are very important when it comes to talking about battery life. When working with deep cycle batteries, its all about DC amp hours. How many do you have and how many DC amp hours are you going to need to run your power inverter? You can use the formulas above to find the information you need.
Whether its a power inverter or a deep cycle battery, the amount of amps AC or DC are very important and crucial information to make sure you can run the essential equipment you need.

[chunkyfrog]

Is the restriction company policy?
Or is there just a question whether the needed power is available?

[cosmo]

http://www.resmed.com/us/service_and_su ... c=patients

Resmed has a nice PDF guide on the right side of their travel page.

[scbeaver]

I am a former truck driver and used an APAP with an AC humidifier with a 200 watt inverter, this was the max Schneider allowed. The newer machines use a separate switching power supply that does not care about the quality of the incoming AC power. They will work fine on any inverter as long as they are rated high enough. I believe that the power supply is rated at 90 watts,and this includes the humidifer. Before Trucking, I worked as an electronics technician in the R&D departments of several electronics firms and worked with switching power supplies.

Sleep Well,

Steve

[STL Mark]

I'm in my third week on the road as a new trucker. My lead who also uses cpap says that I can't use my humidifier with the truck's onboard 1700 watt inverter. He also said I can't use the humidifier on DC even though I have the dc power supply for the unit. I'm using the Resmed S9 with the attachable humidifier. I sure would like to use the thing. If someone has access to the manual, would you please check it out and reply? Thanks.

Have your lead look at your power supply on the cord. The most it can draw is 90 watts at the inverted voltage. That leaves you with enough to use a hair dryer with it. I think he has heard a story about an older machine back when they had smaller inverters in the truck.

[idamtnboy]

I'm in my third week on the road as a new trucker. My lead who also uses cpap says that I can't use my humidifier with the truck's onboard 1700 watt inverter. He also said I can't use the humidifier on DC even though I have the dc power supply for the unit. I'm using the Resmed S9 with the attachable humidifier. I sure would like to use the thing. If someone has access to the manual, would you please check it out and reply? Thanks.

I think he's overly concerned about the power draw running down the truck batteries, maybe. If the truck is running while you're sleeping there's no reason you shouldn't use the humidifier. The max draw of the S9 is less than 90 watts. Over 7 hours that's 630 watt hours, which at 12 volts is about 50 amp hours. If that amount of draw brings down the batteries to the point the truck won't start, there's a real problem there with the truck battery size or condition!

By chance is the inverter connected to a smaller auxiliary battery and used to power several things in the truck, like a microwave and coffee pot? If so, then you may be bouncing up against the capacity of that battery.

Next time you're at home base see if you can't get him to go with you and talk to the shop mechanics. They should be able to set him straight about how much load you're really adding to the system, and why the system should be able to handle it with no problem.

[archangle]

I'm in my third week on the road as a new trucker. My lead who also uses cpap says that I can't use my humidifier with the truck's onboard 1700 watt inverter. He also said I can't use the humidifier on DC even though I have the dc power supply for the unit. I'm using the Resmed S9 with the attachable humidifier. I sure would like to use the thing. If someone has access to the manual, would you please check it out and reply? Thanks.

He's got outdated information.

ResMed S9 machines will work fine with an inverter, even with the heated humidifier and heated hose. They'll only draw 100W or so.

On ResMed S8 machines, the humidifier would be damaged by most inverters.

ResMed S9 machines require the ResMed DC-DC converter for S9 machines to run "directly" off of DC. It will run the S9 blower, heated humidifier and heated hose.

S8 machines would not run the humidifier from DC.

The ResMed DC power manual is here:

[RogerSC]

You don't need a separate "passover" humidifier. If you need to , just turn off your regular humidifier via the settings, but leave it connected (plumbed in as usual *smile*) and full of water, that uses your regular humdifier in passive mode. Did that while I was on a camping trip, worked fine for me.