Thunderstorm experience... scary!

Now don't get me wrong, normally I love storms, and last night was no exception. I went to sleep listening to the distant thunder and the rain pattering on my bedroom window. But sometime early this morning lightening struck near enough to my home that the power went out. I had been sound asleep loving my remstar pro as it carefully kept my airway open. Suddenly I woke up arms flailing, heart pounding and gasping for air. I whipped off my mask and sat up, tears running down my cheeks (has to have been allergies, not fear... right?), it was frightening.

I sat there for a few minutes and eventually the power came back on. This experience got me to thinking about what I would have to do if the power was off for more than a few minutes. Does anyone have any ideas? Do CPAP users homes have some kind of priority when the power is off? If so how is that arranged? Also, I have heard about using a battery to run the machine but how is that possible? Do you have to adapt stuff to make it work?

The AEIOMed aura cpap has a onboard battery that will kick in if the poer goes out or can be used to run the cpap away from the power grid for a night.

Otherwise Chrisp has rigged up a number of battery units that can run a 'pap for weeks without a plug in the wall. I think he needs to put together a package and start offering it for sale.

zart wrote:I sat there for a few minutes and eventually the power came back on. This experience got me to thinking about what I would have to do if the power was off for more than a few minutes. Does anyone have any ideas? Do CPAP users homes have some kind of priority when the power is off? If so how is that arranged? Also, I have heard about using a battery to run the machine but how is that possible? Do you have to adapt stuff to make it work?

Bought a gererator. Also have the junk needed to plug into a car lighter deal.

Interesting that you should raise this issue at this time. We have had several outages in the past few weeks. This week I have been looking into a couple of options to make the machine "uninterruptible":
1) Running the xPAP off a computer UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), which is a battery back-up designed to allow a computer to shut-down properly during a power outage. The problem is that I cannot get a handle on the size of the battery they use. They are rated in terms of VA (related to the maximum power) not longevity of the battery charge (ampere-hours). Most of them give a time of 10 - 60 minutes back-up for a computer, which draws much more current than an xPAP, so you might expect much greater time for the xPAP. It looks like a very convenient way to do it, I would run the humidifier directly off the AC to minimize drain on the UPS.
2) Buying a small deep-cycle battery, with a good quality (multi-stage) charger, and running the xPAP always in 12 volt mode from the DC battery which is kept in a"topped-up" state by the charger. I've been looking at a 31 Ah AGM battery with a 6 amp charger. The humidifier would be connected to the AC.

I'll let you know what I decide....

Derek,

What the **** is your IQ? Scary that you know this much about so much. I am impressed. I could barely follow what you were explaing. Great brain. You must be getting your fair share of oxygenation .

I live in the Tampa Bay area, which is also the lightening capital of the US. A UPS on any sensitive or expensive equipment is a must. Almost every UPS has an outage alert and turns into a blessing and curse for CPAP.

The blessing is that you are alerted to a power outage even in the middle of the night. You can turn off your CPAP machine or leave it on depending on how much battery time you have remaining. I have a 1500VA UPS and have gotten 2 hours for CPAP.

The curse is the alert will not let you go back to sleep. Most UPS do not have an option to turn off the alarm.

I live in illinois and the light company have a rule if any home use a medical equipment and your doc fills out the papers that mean the light company will have to keep your home with power they tag your meter so when the crew men comes out they will see it and your powers comes on first no matter what

Really??? How did you find that out. I live in Indiana...I hope they do the same thing here.

Jordiboy,
Only two hours on a 1500 VA UPS! That's what I was afraid of - I had hoped to get much more. Were you running the humidifier through the UPS? What brand/model?
Actually, I was about to jump in the car and go purchase a 1100 VA Belkin. Maybe I'll wait.

I found out a couple of yrs ago because I raise my little sister and she use a asthma machine and I had to let the light company know. All you have to do Yawn is call your light company and ask them if they offer that.

here are some ups runtime charts:

http://www.orient-logic.com/apc/chart.asp?id=0

I use the 100 watt/160 volt amp as a ballpark estimated figure. Based on the remstar pro nameplate listing of 120 Volts 1 Amp max

You can also look at:
http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm
select "configure by load"

If you want to learn about watts VS volt amps, powerfactors etc look at:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview ... TMP=Linear

I just use the chart

Jeff

Tinker,
I don't think the Respironics xPAP should draw anything like 1 amp at 120 v ac, because the APAP draws less that 1 amp when running on 12v dc (measured), so I was taking 12 - 15 watts as the power for my calculations.

I'm going by the label on the back of the unit
AC 1.0 A max / DC 3.0 A max.
Thats just the unit, not the humidifier.

What the actual current draw is don't know. But when figuring power use i usually go by what the manufacturer lists as the rated max values. That gives a "worst case scenario" anything better than that is a bonus.

also don't forget there will be some loss on AC power because it has to convert the AC to DC for the machine to actually use.
1 amp 120 volts = 120 watts vs 3 amp 12 volts = 36 watts for my unit

Either way i would say the 12 volt battery and a float charger will give much more bang for the buck versus buying a ups. Just a bit more work to set up

Not to mention no darn beeper !!!

_________________

CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): humidifier, Power

_________________

CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): humidifier, Power

I wish one of you "power geeks" would draw a picture for those of us who aren't as brainiacally endowed. Terry

Well....I'm not sure if I qualify as a "power geeks" but I will try to break it down a bit. I am going to start very basic for people who have never heard of a UPS, so don't be offended if I cover something you already understand

UPS is Uninterruptible Power Supply.
OK, so what's that?

It is used on Computers and other electronic devices to keep them powered when the AC utility power goes out.

The UPS plugs into the wall outlet, and the device plugs into the UPS.

It is a box, usually about ranging in size from shoebox size up to .... Well let's just say REALLY BIG.

Inside they have a battery or batteries that are kept constantly charged by a built-in charger.

When the power goes out it takes the power from its batteries and converts it to "Regular AC Power" and supplies it to whatever you have plugged in to it. And it usually has an annoying beeper that you sometimes can't shut of to tell you it is running on batteries.

The problem is that it takes a big one to power something for very long. Depending largely on what you are trying to power. Possibly as much as $200-$400 for one to power a cpap for a few hours

They are rated in voltamps 700va, 1500va 2500 VA etc but that doesn't really tell you how long they will last with any given piece of equipment. That's what we were trying to figure out,

The cpaps we are talking about (respironics) are powered by 12Volts DC (just like a car accessory). Even when you plug in an AC cord to it just takes that AC and converts it to 12 Volts DC to run the machine.

So it is much more efficient to just use a 12 volt battery, straight to the cpap than it is to take a UPS, convert its battery power to AC, then take that AC and convert it back to DC, and power the cpap

The Battery solution will also need a Power Supply/ Charger to keep it at full capacity and run the cpap when there is power available. But it should be much more efficient and cost effective to do it that way. It just requires more assembly than an off the shelf solution.

There also is a different between what the manufacturer says the cpap will use in the way of power (amps), and what Derek is actually measuring that the cpap is using. I think this is due to 2 things

1. I was talking about AC power, which has to be converted to DC power in the cpap, which wastes quite a bit of the power, and Derek was measuring DC power fed in to the cpap through the DC jack on the back.

2. The manufacturer is rating it at worst case scenario, going full blast, etc, and he was probably measuring it at the setting he uses.

His measurement are probably better, being "real world", than the theoretical numbers I was using.