PRS1 60 series humidifier ?malfunction

I am on an ASV with the Oracle oral mask and 70 days into my therapy and doing well. During this time I had two days in a row about a month ago where my humidifier seemed to have turned off or become dysfunctional and I was horribly dry and irritated those two days. Very little water had evaporated out of the tank on those two days. There had been no change in the weather or ambient temperatures. Then it was smooth sailing again. BUT last night I again had an increase in my AHI and felt extremely dried out and so I felt the heater plate of my humidifier when I woke up and noticed that it was merely warm and certainly not hot by any means.

My settings are humidifier heat 3 (highest) and heated tube 5 (highest).

I guess my question is: Should the heater plate be HOT at all times rather than merely somewhat warm? I am wondering if I have an intermittently failing humidifier unit. With the Oracle mask it is necessary for me to have as much humidification as possible. At these settings, should the plate be hot and most of the water be gone at the end of the night?

Thanks for any insight.

Your machine...no...it doesn't get hot hot to the touch and it does cycle and you may have caught it mid cycle when it felt barely warm.
But it does get more than "barely warm" if your barely warm is my barely warm.

You can use the preheat function available with your machine and check it after 15 minutes to see how warm it is.
Do you know about the preheat function?
It's better to check it at the beginning of the night than at the end of the night because we don't know if at the end of the night you might just be in the "down' cycle.

Amount of water used each night even when settings are maxed is going to vary based on ambient humidity...has it been raining where you live and is it possible that your humidity in general is higher now than at other times?
I use minimal to none water at my max settings when it's been raining lately.

would someone post simple explanation of the preheat function on the 60 series.

thanks

My humidifier plate is always at least warm in the morning. My settings are 3 and 3 so the tube is not warmed as much as yours. That should not have any effect on the internal heater in your unit.
I think you are correct - its an intermittent failure. Back to the DME for a replacement because you are correct in the need for high humidity with the Oracle mask.

Thanks, I do use the preheat function religiously each night. Good idea for me to check the temp of the plate after the preheat function has been on.

Did not know about the cycling on and off of the plate. Thanks for that info.

No rain recently but have not checked relative humidity on the weather report. Will also check to see if I was having a nasal plug leak.

I will check this afternoon when I get home and also talk to the DME about ? replacement.

As for the poster asking about the pre heat function, you press and hold the main function knob down for approximately 5 seconds and the machine will beep and the heater light will turn on. I believe it either stays on 20 or 30 minutes - can't remember which.

I will report back.

snorebeard wrote:would someone post simple explanation of the preheat function on the 60 series.

Like how to do it? It's in the user manual...page 9 of my manual but might be different for you depending on version.

"Humidifier Preheat
When using a humidifier, the device can now preheat the water tank for up to 30 minutes prior to starting therapy.
In order to activate the preheat mode, the blower must be “off” and a humidifier must be attached. From the device
Home screen, highlight “Therapy”, then press and hold down the control wheel for 5 seconds. You will hear a single
beep and the device will now be in preheat mode. The humidifier icon (
) will illuminate during this time.
During the 30 minute preheat, you will still be able to use the control wheel to select other menu options from the
Home screen. If you press the wheel while “Therapy” is highlighted on the Home screen, preheat mode will end and
the blower will turn “on” to begin therapy. The humidifier number selected in the setup menu (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) will
now take effect."

Pugsy wrote:

snorebeard wrote:would someone post simple explanation of the preheat function on the 60 series.

Like how to do it? It's in the user manual...page 9 of my manual but might be different for you depending on version.

The humidifier number selected in the setup menu (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) will
now take effect."

Interesting part about the humidifier number. My machine has two settings. The humidifier "heat" is 1, 2, or 3. And the Hose heat is 1-5. Does this intimate that There might be a way of upping the actual humidifier heater setting that I am not accessing or is this just the instruction manual getting the humidifier and the tube setting all mixed up?

photonic wrote:The humidifier "heat" is 1, 2, or 3.

The settings 1 through 3 for for humidity to be delivered..
1...70%
2....80%
3....90%

The settings 1 through 5 are for temperature of the air only.
From the product page at cpap.com for the humidifier.

This humidifier offers three levels of humidification (70, 80 or 90 percent) and the heated tube has five levels of temperature available, ranging from 4 to 16 degrees above the room temperature. These two features work together to deliver the optimum humidification level at the mask.

You are already using the highest settings possible to deliver the greatest amount of humidity... I am not sure that even Classic mode at 5 would give you more than 90% but I can pretty much guarantee a good dose of rain out in Classic mode.

Do the preheat thing and see how warm it gets. It should be noticeably warm but not hot..it's never scorching hot or anywhere close to that.
Also check on ambient humidity....it makes a significant change in water usage when it is higher.
Especially if you have now opened windows to the outside for part of the day.

Thanks for the clarification. Will experiment this afternoon. Your help is so appreciated.

snorebeard wrote:would someone post simple explanation of the preheat function on the 60 series.
thanks

My experience with the preheat function on my ASV machine was the time to start was about 7 seconds and the temperature got to be fairly warm after about 20 minutes. I think the exact time is different for different models or even different machines.

As an aside, this function no longer works after I installed the oximeter adapter. I suspect that the oximeter's going into search mode looking for a pulse, etc. is blocking the indicator of the main button being pushed. I just tried an experiment of waiting for 5 minutes or so until the display no longer shows the oximeter display returns the button to functionality.
Pressing for 7 seconds turns on preheat, pressing for just a second or less turns the machine on.

photonic wrote: My settings are humidifier heat 3 (highest) and heated tube 5 (highest).

Wow. I have to keep both my tube and humidifier on 2 or I run out of water each night. I've played around with different settings and have found I can't go over 2. A couple nights ago, I had the humidifier on 2 and turned the heated tube to 3 and I didn't have any water in the tank the next morning. My average hours on it each night are around 7. Is that normal or should I have mine looked at too? I haven't tried the preheat function. I will have to look into that.

When it rains or snows in winter, is the humidity usually higher? Does wood heat usually take a lot of the humidity out of the house? Do you change your settings on your machine depending on the weather?

Ogeo wrote:

photonic wrote: My settings are humidifier heat 3 (highest) and heated tube 5 (highest).

Wow. I have to keep both my tube and humidifier on 2 or I run out of water each night. I've played around with different settings and have found I can't go over 2. A couple nights ago, I had the humidifier on 2 and turned the heated tube to 3 and I didn't have any water in the tank the next morning. My average hours on it each night are around 7. Is that normal or should I have mine looked at too? I haven't tried the preheat function. I will have to look into that.

When it rains or snows in winter, is the humidity usually higher? Does wood heat usually take a lot of the humidity out of the house? Do you change your settings on your machine depending on the weather?

Good question. To add on, what does the effect of the type of heat have on your settings. For instance, I have gas heat and am pretty sure this dries out the air. Electric heat doesn't.

JimP wrote:Good question. To add on, what does the effect of the type of heat have on your settings. For instance, I have gas heat and am pretty sure this dries out the air. Electric heat doesn't.

gas heat should only dry out the air if the furnace doesn't have a proper source of makeup air.

if it doesn't, then it's pulling in outside air into the the house to make up for what goes up the chimney.

the cold outside air, of course, has a lower absolute humidity than what's inside.

if your furnace is more modern and has make up air plumbed in to satisfy the needs, it will both be more efficient (not using the warmed internal air for combustion) and won't lower the humidity.

disclaimer: this is opinion.

Ogeo wrote:When it rains or snows in winter, is the humidity usually higher? Does wood heat usually take a lot of the humidity out of the house? Do you change your settings on your machine depending on the weather?

Wood heat will dry out the air in a home.

No, I don't change my humidity settings now that I have a heated hose and the ability for the machine to maintain a constant never changing amount of moisture to my nose.. I want same humidity year round without having to worry about what the ambient humidity is for me to figure out what my nose needs...
I do vary the temperature of the air in the hose though. Cooler temps in summer and warmer in winter.
Remember I don't have a very warm bedroom in winter...crappy old house with no insulation and I can't keep the house warm like some people do. I can't even if I wanted to. When it's really cold the amount of propane I would use up would break my pocketbook if I ever set the thermostat over 68 degrees..if I set it to 72...the furnace would run non stop if it was freezing outside. It just can't get there.

So I use the heated hose and set it to automatic humidity delivery and only vary the temperature and don't really care what the ambient humidity is...I let the machine sort it out. Some night I will use all the water or almost all and some nights I barely use any. The barely use any nights are most often when the ambient humidity is rather high like when it's raining or snowing.
So with the S9 Climateline...automatic setting and temp of my choice
with the PR S1 that's humidity at 3 and temp of my choice...remember my nose likes and needs lots of moisture to be happy. YMMV. That way my nasal mucosa stays at a more or less constant moisture level...the body is funny about change...it doesn't care for change all that much. It likes for things to be predictable.

I would still do it that way even if I was one of the people whose nose wanted things drier....I would set it for lower humidity and temperature to be variable with seasons (easy to do with the PR S1 and takes a little bit of work with the S9 off of automatic but can be done).

My suggestion...find what the nose is happy with and leave it alone. Don't worry about anticipating weather changes..can't do anything about them anyway. Don't worry about how much water gets used as long as the unit is working. It rained here last night...windows were open...brrr got down to the 40s. It's 49 degrees right now with furious winds..so it was colder during the night ....No furnace yet..
I don't have to look but I know that minimal water was used...doesn't matter...nose happy this morning...I have warmed the air up a bit or I might have got a bit of rain out in my nasal pillows from the moisture in my own exhaled breath.

All the above...pertains to machines with heated hoses and humidity sensors...those people without them...it gets more challenging to keep the nose happy without the usual winter issues.

OK, checked my unit and the humidifier seems to be working fine this time. After looking carefully at my sleepyhead data I think what happened is that my nose plugs fell out for about 1-2 hours and air was shooting in the mouth and out the nose thus drying out my soft palate. I am stuffing those suckers up higher in my nose and no more problems. Hit AHI of 1.1 last night. Yay.