Camping with my cpap

Apneic Nation · Post by **Apneic Nation** » Tue May 16, 2006 7:44 am

Anyone have any experience camping with their cpap. I mean tent camping, with nowhere to plug in their machine. I understand I'll need adapters to run my Remstar from a 12v deep cycle marine battery,. Any help or helpful advice would be appreciated. I'm not willing to give up taking my boys fishing this summer for anything...almost.

jkeene · Post by **jkeene** » Tue May 16, 2006 7:57 am

Sure, I've used a Xantrax PowerPack 400 Plus to run my Remstar Plus. 10 cm, no humidifier, 16 hours run time left 40% charge still in the battery. It doesn't seem like the battery charge drops linearly, but I suspect I could have gotten another 8 hours out of it without any trouble.

As bonus, I just leave the Remstart hooked up to the PowerPack while at home, and it gets me through blackouts from Florida thunderstorms with no disruption at all. Just be sure to plug the humidifier into wall current, and the CPAP machine into the PowerPack if you try this. Most humidifiers will fry their guts on the modified sine wave that battery systems usually generate.

Apneic Nation · Post by **Apneic Nation** » Tue May 16, 2006 8:28 am

Ok, I checked that out and it looks like the kind of setup I want, but I'm going to need one that's more powerful. My setting is 16, and I expect to be out for three to five days at a time. Someone help me out here, where can I get big powerpack?

Apneic Nation · Post by **Apneic Nation** » Tue May 16, 2006 11:27 am

So are you running your machine into the 110 ac output on the Xantrex?

My Remstar auto's rated power consumption: @ 110vac x 1.0a, thats 110 watts; according to the Xantrex Powerpack 400 users guide, a small 13" tv at 60wac will run the battery completely down in 2.5 hrs. So hmmmm...

So are you running it with an adapter from the Xantrex 12v output?

Fubar2u · Post by **Fubar2u** » Tue May 16, 2006 11:34 am

how close will you be to your automobile?
Last year at 10cm no humidifer I was using a regular car battery and then charging with car alternator on one trip and with a bettery charger about 300ft away on another camp trip. I think I could of got 2 nights with the battery charge. I wouldn't bother with heated humidifer because of power usage but passover would work if ness. If you were to be gone 4 days away from civ. I'd try borrowing 2 car batteries and using hand truck to hump them to your site. Borrowed batteries work best!

Apneic Nation · Post by **Apneic Nation** » Tue May 16, 2006 12:09 pm

So with the Remstar Auto I have, and the 12 volt adapter cable w/ battery clips, can I just use a deep cycle marine battery?

brasshopper · Post by **brasshopper** » Tue May 16, 2006 12:34 pm

The answer is deep cycle marine batteries. Heck, with a solar panel, you could recharge them some during the day. Probably not enough unless you had a big panel.

Your car batteries are not designed to deliver a "deep discharge". A few cycles of that can kill them. They are designed to deliver a lot of current quickly to start the car. They should then be topped off immediately - unlike nicads, lead acids want to spend their time at nearly full charge almost all of the time.

Also, you need them to start the vehicle.

Deep discharge batteries will take more of the discharge/recharge cycling. They will still die, eventually, but not as quickly. The big ones are about $85 or so at Walmart.

This is common discussion on the RV groups. Not just with CPAP but with all sorts of appliances.

The newer UPS boxes put out something a lot closer to a sine wave than the older ones did - and with good efficiency, too. I've been running my ancient CPAP on a Computer grade UPS for over 10 years now, ever since I moved to Florida.

jkeene · Post by **jkeene** » Tue May 16, 2006 1:47 pm

Apneic Nation wrote:So are you running your machine into the 110 ac output on the Xantrex?

My Remstar auto's rated power consumption: @ 110vac x 1.0a, thats 110 watts; according to the Xantrex Powerpack 400 users guide, a small 13" tv at 60wac will run the battery completely down in 2.5 hrs. So hmmmm...

So are you running it with an adapter from the Xantrex 12v output?

I bought the 12VDC adaptor for my machine and run it on that all the time. Saves some conversion efficiency on each end. The current draw listed in manual always seems a bit high, 3.0 amps at 12 VDC can't possibly be the all night draw, the Xantrex only has a C-20 battery inside. I suspect the blower in the Remstar doesn't have a separate starting winding, so it needs a big surge to get up to speed, but then it's back down to an idle draw after that.

If you've got access to a good marine battery you can borrow, I'd recommend doing a trial run on your pressure overnight and see how much voltage drop you can measure on the battery.

Tumbleweed · Post by **Tumbleweed** » Tue May 16, 2006 6:44 pm

And don't forget the smaller 1-2000W generators out there. My Honda is so quiet you have to listen pretty close to tell it's on at 12-15 feet away. It runs for up to 14 hours on 1 Gallon of gas and only weighs about 49#. That's almost less than those deep-cycle batteries!

dllfo · Post by **dllfo** » Tue May 16, 2006 9:44 pm

Tumbleweed, our Hondas can charge a battery up to 8 amp per hour can't
they? I have never had to do it though.

RV/Marine batteries should be fine, and as was mentioned, shop around for
an inexpensive solar panel to charge the battery. Camping World may carry
them.

I got one for my boat a few years ago, then sold the boat. Good luck with it...
oh yeah. If you have the bucks...the AGM batteries are really nice. If your
kids or dog or wife turn it over...no big deal. No water to spill and mine charge
like a water filled battery. The gel cells ......I think they require a special
charger, or used to. There are so many changes going on...good luck with it.

aksarben1010 · Post by **aksarben1010** » Tue May 16, 2006 11:32 pm

So how do you hook these things up to run on 12 volts?

I have a S8 Compact, it claims that it will run on 12 volts, cpap only no humid. I have looked at this thing and can only find the 110 plug-in on this unit and nothing that I can see as a way to change it.

Will it auto sense 12DC it I just hook it up to a battery, or do you have to have a converter?

Scott

aksarben1010 · Post by **aksarben1010** » Tue May 16, 2006 11:36 pm

Never mind, I see that Resmed has an add on device for this that costs yet more money.

Scott

Patrick A · Post by **Patrick A** » Wed May 17, 2006 12:54 am

I use my Cpap in my motorhome and I use a cord that I got from my DME provider it's 12ft long. so I put a 12v-dc plug by my bed in my old motorhome. I bought a new Motorhome and it has sever 12v-dc pulgs in it so I did not need to put any more in and when I have power I hook up to the AC plugs.

Remember without "Truckdrivers America Stops!"

Tumbleweed · Post by **Tumbleweed** » Wed May 17, 2006 5:36 pm

dllfo....... What I mean't was to forget the batterys all together and run the XPAP and humidifier off the generator. The Hondas have circuitry built in to allow even sensitive equipment like a computer to run off it. And at almost 2 nights per gallon of gas, it's a lot less hassle than dealing with batterys and recharging and such. IMHO

rbv24 · Post by **rbv24** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 1:55 pm

I found a lithium ion battery setup called the Power Station ($299.00) from http://batterygeek.net that I used for camping 2 weeks ago. I used it for 3 days on one charge and I probably could have had a fourth day on it.

It comes with wide variety of adapters to fit almost any machine and the best part is that it weighs just 2 pounds. The only downside that I found with the unit is that when you shut it off it does not retain the voltage setting which is easy enough to reset.

Machine

Camping with my cpap

Camping with my cpap

Batteries vs. Batteries