Charging a back up battery

Powering a XPAP machine on D/c (Off the Grid) Is like planning to eat without access to a store for goods. what you need depends on how long you want to do what you want to do. Nobody's battery solution isn't big, it a medium solution. You can have much bigger batteries, the more the battery the longer you will be able to get by with public service's A/C. I If you want a battery to get you through most of a night you have nice clean lithium battery packs, costly, portable but a little light in the loafers. Nobody's solution is better for more than a night, probably 2 or 3, doesn't require much fuss, heavy but not a back breaker.

You can use larger deep cycle batteries for longer downtimes, they aren't too portable, you need to determine what level of protection you can get by with and need, if worst comes to worst a lot of us can live a night or two sitting up in a chair sleeping, not that I'd want too. Jim

From what I'm reading, I think I'm gonna take my chances . . . and do without backup. We rarely get power outages where I live, and when we do, they don't last long. My adjustable bed should do me . . . sleeping HIGH I'm a bit overpowered (forgive the pun ) with all this "car battery" in my bedroom stuff.

Read this post: viewtopic/t40733/Uninterruptable-Power-Supplys.html

Battery Geek makes a good portable CPAP battery too.

Heated humidifiers suck up the juice from a battery. Almost all. if not all, heated humidifiers have to have an inverter to convert the 12 volts DC to 120 volts AC. Some of the ResMed humidifiers can't be run from inverters at all, and some ResMed humidifiers have to have a special ($$$) pure sine wave inverter.

Bearded_One wrote:Battery Geek makes a good portable CPAP battery too.

Heated humidifiers suck up the juice from a battery. Almost all. if not all, heated humidifiers have to have an inverter to convert the 12 volts DC to 120 volts AC. Some of the ResMed humidifiers can't be run from inverters at all, and some ResMed humidifiers have to have a special ($$$) pure sine wave inverter.

I think I remember reading that Battery Geek either stopped manufacture of this battery or disappeared altogether, and that some other company was interested in taking over the line of cpap battery they made.

Bearded_One wrote:Battery Geek makes a good portable CPAP battery too.

Heated humidifiers suck up the juice from a battery. Almost all. if not all, heated humidifiers have to have an inverter to convert the 12 volts DC to 120 volts AC. Some of the ResMed humidifiers can't be run from inverters at all, and some ResMed humidifiers have to have a special ($$$) pure sine wave inverter.

Hi,

My Respironics M Series BiPAP Auto w/ Integrated Heated Humidifier runs just fine directly from a 12 volt DC battery feed. No inverter is required. I've actually done it, just need a cigarette type patch cord, several times and both my BiPAP Heated humidifier continue to run just fine when I hook it back to AC.

I agree that Heated Humidifiers use more watts then XPAP alone. But, the ability of the heated humidifier to run off of a 12 volt DC source actually depends on the manufacturer and model that you have.

If you post the make and model I am confident that someone, from this forum, can specifically address your question.

Bearded_One wrote:Some of the ResMed humidifiers can't be run from inverters at all

That's news to me. Which ones specifically?

Bearded_One wrote:and some ResMed humidifiers have to have a special ($$$) pure sine wave inverter.

While the Resmed humdifiers require a normal sine wave AC (as distinct from a pseudo square wave AC, aka "modified sine wave") to enable the efficient phase control of the humdifier heating element to work, they will run of any normal sine wave AC source and there is no need for anything special about that normal sine wave AC source.

They certainly wont run off cheap and nasty modified sine wave inverters, but will run of any inverter of adequate capacity that produces a normal sine wave AC output.

Cheers,

Bill

JoyD. wrote:From what I'm reading, I think I'm gonna take my chances . . . and do without backup. We rarely get power outages where I live, and when we do, they don't last long. My adjustable bed should do me . . . sleeping HIGH I'm a bit overpowered (forgive the pun ) with all this "car battery" in my bedroom stuff.

Do you have a hand crank on that bed? Jim

billbolton wrote:

Bearded_One wrote:Some of the ResMed humidifiers can't be run from inverters at all

That's news to me. Which ones specifically?

Bearded_One wrote:and some ResMed humidifiers have to have a special ($$$) pure sine wave inverter.

While the Resmed humdifiers require a normal sine wave AC (as distinct from a pseudo square wave AC, aka "modified sine wave") to enable the efficient phase control of the humdifier heating element to work, they will run of any normal sine wave AC source and there is no need for anything special about that normal sine wave AC source.

They certainly wont run off cheap and nasty modified sine wave inverters, but will run of any inverter of adequate capacity that produces a normal sine wave AC output.

Cheers,

Bill

I agree with you Bill. Its just unfortunate, for people that go "Off Grid," that an inverter is needed to run the ResMed Heated Humidifier. The use of an inverter just adds to the power consumed and thus increases the required size of the battery pack.


Are you familiar with any Heated Humidifier, other then the Respironics Integrated M Series Heated Humidifier that runs directly on 12 Volt DC?

JoyD. wrote: I'm a bit overpowered (forgive the pun ) with all this "car battery" in my bedroom stuff.

What, you mean you don't consider this fine home decor!?



view from the side of my bed

nobody wrote:

JoyD. wrote: I'm a bit overpowered (forgive the pun ) with all this "car battery" in my bedroom stuff.

What, you mean you don't consider this fine home decor!?

view from the side of my bed

You know that you could put it all in a battery box (usually a formed plastic box and lid) but then you got lots of space for other misc. XPAP "stuff" been there done that and nearly kicked out of the bedroom by my spouse.

BTW: Thanks for sharing. I think that I'll just pick up a 110 AH AGM (I'll only pick it up once--they are heavy) We've been known to loose power for up to 3 three days (those darn ice storms!). I'll put mine in a battery box with both a trickle charger and the 12 volt accessory adaptor hooked up with only the two plugs hanging out of the box. Procedure--unplug charger from wall, plug XPAP into 12 Volt adaptor and back in business.

OT maybe--(oh yes--I forgot to mention that when the power does go out, I have to get up, power down several computers and then the noisy (Beeping) UPS hooked up to each of my 24/7 research computers and then I'll be more then awake enough to hook up the BiPAP to the battery. [Just in case you are wondering, I have several computers running "Folding@Home" a Stanford University distributed computing project that conducts gene research]) Link http://folding.stanford.edu/

When I lived in Flint, the power would go out every time the wind blew a little bit, then it would be days before anyone would bother to fix it. Thankfully where I live now (up north) it is rare for the power to go out and the entire system is much more modern and reliable. It's more likely for the power to go out during hot spells in the summer or thunderstorms than during ice storms.

It's never out for long here. Over the last 10 years I can't remember the power being out for more than a day. Some of the other areas around here are not so lucky and they have long spells (1-3 weeks) of power outages from ice storms, thunderstorms, etc. I'm not sure why that is, maybe because the city I live in has its own city-owned power co-op so they have a very small geographic area to concentrate on. But they sometimes have planned outages for upgrades/maintenance and sometimes that happens overnight. I don't want to sleep without my cpap, ever.

I'm planning to buy one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-DPP-600H ... 000TKHMWK/ . It's definitely not bedroom decor, but I don't plan on bringing it to the bedroom unless the power is out. I'll keep it plugged-in on the shelf in the laundry room until needed. Reasons it's at the top of my short list.

1. Lots of capacity (28AH) at reasonable price ($130).
2. Choice of using either 110V outlet, or getting a DC cord from cpap.com and running off 12V.
3. Very portable
4. Can be used for other things, e.g., jump-starting dead battery in car, powering entertainment devices at the park, etc.

I have the Respironics Battery Pack and have had it for a couple of years now. I have never had to use it. Everytime a power outage type storm brews up, I top off the charge and have it ready. It's availabe at cpap.com for $299 I believe.

So far that is all I have ever done with it.

I am following this thread, knowing virtually nothing about batteries but feeling better having something ready.

I have 2 questions.

Builta- you say that the M Series with an integrated heated humdifier will work from your battery with some level of heat in the humdidfier. I have the M Series Auto A-flex. I use the FP stand alone humidifier with it but have the Intregrated heated humidfier set up with my backup M Series Pro. Do you know if both the machine and the integrated humidifier would work with that battery? It would be on DC power of course since I have adapter cord.

El Pap - you said you are going to purchase that Duracell unit. You said you are going to leave it plugged in, in the laundry room until and if you need it. That sounds good to me.
Do you know if I can leave my Respironics battery pack plugged in all the time like that?

If you 2 or any one else on this thread knows the answers to my questions, Help!

Thanks

Hawthorne wrote:I have the Respironics Battery Pack and have had it for a couple of years now. I have never had to use it. Everytime a power outage type storm brews up, I top off the charge and have it ready. It's availabe at cpap.com for $299 I believe.

Note that you need to also buy the dc power cord, which makes it a bit more expensive. Also that reminds me that I intend to use mine even when the power is on but there is a threat of severe weather overnight. Lightening strikes are always possible and I wouldn't want to trust my machine (or my face!) to one of those power strips that supposedly has a circuit breaker in it.

Do you know if I can leave my Respironics battery pack plugged in all the time like that?

Yes, as long as you have a smart charger that will not overcharge it.