Portable Solar Power for Your CPAP Machines

Hi I am wanting to get your feedback about our Portable Solar Power System which we have sold to many CPAP users and they have used them to power their CPAP machines while away from Grid Power. This could also be used in a emergency situation where Grid Power is lost due to storms or disaster situations.


















Here is a PDF Information Sheet that you can download and look over if you want more info about this system package:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/bydouc0yr0w/Powerenz 150 System Flyer.pdf

This 260 Watt Hour Battery has been specifically designed by us to be Solar Rechargeable, you can not plug in a solar panel to any of the other CPAP batteries because it will just show a flashing red error message and will not charge.

Please feel free to ask any questions about how this can help you.

Great concept, but very pricey.

My backup battery, which cost me about $450 and weighs under 5 lbs., will run my machine and my heated humidifier for three nights.

Yes the main advantage that our system has is the ability to be recharged daily from the sun without a source of regular Grid AC power.

So with your system you can last 3 days, and with ours you can run your system everyday as long as you get a decent amount of sun for part of the day.

A CPAP customer recently called us and said he had used his CPAP machine for 2 nights and still had 2 of the 4 bars on the battery fuel gauge left.

Another CPAP user bought a system cause he was going on a Boy Scout Camping Trip for a 4 or 5 days.

This system weighs 12 Pounds with everything in the Bag, The battery Weighs 4.4 Pounds, and the Battery and panel weigh 9 pounds.

Hmmmm -- 9 plus 4.4 = 12?!?

It looks really good.

But:

My concern is price point. Little by little, solar is getting more efficient and cheaper. If the same system was available within 25% of competing non-solar battery back ups, i'd buy it. But its currently at 3x to 4x the price. Once the price falls to $550-ish, I'm in.

Digressing OT just a little, I was looking in to a solar system & wind combo system for my house. I love the idea of generating my own power and I think a de-centralized power generating systems are the way to get energy cheaper. But the break-even/Return on Investment is currently about 21 years. For me, that's a poor capital investment, especially since we plan to be in our house at most 10 years. Typically, with an outlay of (for me) a significant sum, I'd want to see a ROI in 5 years or better. If I lived out in the wilderness, it would be a totally different story, but I live in the burbs... by analogy much the same with this system.

kat:

battery 4.4
battery and panel 9
battery and panel and all the other stuff 12 (I don't know if the weight of bag is included somewhere(?))

I think you read too fast.....

Yes the batter weighed 4.4 pounds last time I weighed it, the solar panel weighs 3.2 pounds so looking at about 9 pounds for the Battery, 60w Solar Panel and 150w Inverter, then the bag, AC charger, Tent Stakes, 15ft Solar Panel - to - Battery Cord, and Panel to Cigarette Lighter Socket is where the extra 4 pounds come from.

As a portable solar power company we are also waiting on the prices to come down and for technology to improve efficiency but right now we just work with the best of whats available to us now. Solar power is expensive still but in some situations its the only logical choice.

You could always just buy 4 batteries which would be 17 pounds or so and give you almost 90 amp hours of run time, but you will never be able to recharge them if you are away from grid power or in a power outage or in a disaster/survival situation.

Being a Soldier, that looks very interesting to me, but the biggest problem I see with it is the size. Not too many places where I could lay something like that out to recharge while I'm in the field. I have a unique job where I am, and most of the places where I stay in the field are hidden under trees to keep the people we're training from having an easy time of finding us.

I must have missed where the price is, I'm guessing that the others found that online. If it is as high as I'm hearing, that is a real killer for someone like me

Just my 2 cents.

A product like that could also be 'built up' from individual cmnponents-- a solar panel or panels (60W is what I would consider minimum size, especially if you run higher pressures. 100 W gives some margin), a charge controller, and a suitable battery. Might not be as portable, but would very likely cost less.

I already have a Battery Geeks 18.5Ah Li-ion CPAP battery; can this solar charger charge my battery?

Interesting system -- nice to have everything in one package,

However, it's entirely too expensive for the amount of power generated. I've been studying solar and wind systems, as well as microhydro -- for the cost of your portable system, I could have a significant amount of power on my home.

FYI -- I've been using solar hot water as a back up since the mid1980s, and we've been on all solar hot water since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Does seem very pricey. Also does the inverter output Pure Sine Wave electricity for those of us using ResMed machines?

drj130 wrote:Being a Soldier, that looks very interesting to me, but the biggest problem I see with it is the size. Not too many places where I could lay something like that out to recharge while I'm in the field. I have a unique job where I am, and most of the places where I stay in the field are hidden under trees to keep the people we're training from having an easy time of finding us.

I must have missed where the price is, I'm guessing that the others found that online. If it is as high as I'm hearing, that is a real killer for someone like me

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for posting, if you hiding underneath trees and other stuff then there would be no good option for generating power for you that I can think of. We do have Jungle and Desert Camoflauge but the solar cells will still be the same color regardless. This is a totally silent way of of generating power which would be a big plus for your situation.

We have sold many systems to military's all around the world and are contacted on a regular basis for custom systems and large amounts of these same systems you see in the pictures. We have built custom systems for the HumVee's in the middle east to keep their 24v battery packs charged. We are working on some new systems now that the military is going to love due to being 30-50% lighter weight.

We have cheaper systems on our website if you do not need this actual package or a smaller solar panel.

timbalionguy wrote:A product like that could also be 'built up' from individual cmnponents-- a solar panel or panels (60W is what I would consider minimum size, especially if you run higher pressures. 100 W gives some margin), a charge controller, and a suitable battery. Might not be as portable, but would very likely cost less.

Yes you can always build your own system which we do all the time and its fun, and it will be cheaper probably just depends on what your cost are, we buy direct from the manufacturer in larger quantities. We are here for the person who just wants the best system available and wants it now.

I just charged a 20Ah battery today with a 70w foldable solar panel and even though it was cloudy and rainy most of the day I was still able to put 8+ Ah's into the battery which is just about 50% full, which is not bad for a crappy rainy day with very little sun shining through here and there.

We do have cheaper systems available that might be a better fit depending on power needs and budget.

bearded_two wrote:I already have a Battery Geeks 18.5Ah Li-ion CPAP battery; can this solar charger charge my battery?

No you can not plug in a solar panel to any of Battery Geeks CPAP batteries and charge them. It will flash RED and will not charge, I tried that along time ago. Our CPAP batteries had to be created specifically for Solar Charging. Good question though.

Kiralynx wrote:Interesting system -- nice to have everything in one package,

However, it's entirely too expensive for the amount of power generated. I've been studying solar and wind systems, as well as microhydro -- for the cost of your portable system, I could have a significant amount of power on my home.

FYI -- I've been using solar hot water as a back up since the mid1980s, and we've been on all solar hot water since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Yes its very nice to have everything you would need in one nice package ready to go without having to try to hunt around for all the nicest parts available. I read Home Power magazine when I get the chance and think its very interesting and also very expensive to go completely solar with a home. I have noticed that Solar Hot Water heating is the most efficient use of solar power to date.

Yes for $2000 you can get almost 500w's of Aluminum Framed Panels on your roof, but try taking those kitchen tabled sized panels anywhere with you, and if you could just think of how long it would take you till the glass cracked somehow.

We plan on offering 85w square panels as a option for some of our larger portable systems simply cause they are more effieicent and are square so they can reasonably be carried with care if needed in a padded canvas bag.

Thanks for your feedback....

tattooyu wrote:Does seem very pricey. Also does the inverter output Pure Sine Wave electricity for those of us using ResMed machines?

The system comes with a Modified Sine Wave Inverter that is matched to work with this particular battery so the inverter does not cut off till the battery is completely dead. Most inverters will cut off before the battery is completely dead.

We can provide you with Pure Sine Wave Inverters if needed.

Feel free to Check out our website http://www.Powerenz.com to see our less expensive systems we have available.

I can see investing in this if I was still doing my wilderness camping. Obviously I assumed that going off grid for 2 weeks or more was going be a no go from now on.
If one were running a wilderness tour operation this would be a fabulous thing to have available for rent for ones cpap clients. That way the cost for something one would use 2 weeks in the year not be an issue.

The last disaster here was the ice storm 10 years ago when large parts of the whole region lost power, and since I live on the second floor with a one meter square balcony that gets sun for about one hour it wouldn't be effective for me.

BlackSpinner wrote:I can see investing in this if I was still doing my wilderness camping. Obviously I assumed that going off grid for 2 weeks or more was going be a no go from now on.
If one were running a wilderness tour operation this would be a fabulous thing to have available for rent for ones cpap clients. That way the cost for something one would use 2 weeks in the year not be an issue.

The last disaster here was the ice storm 10 years ago when large parts of the whole region lost power, and since I live on the second floor with a one meter square balcony that gets sun for about one hour it wouldn't be effective for me.

So you guys think it would be a great idea to be albe to rent one of these systems from us for a per day price so you can use it when you need it without all the cost of having to buy one? Sounds reasonable to me.

I'm thinking it would work like a Hotel Room charge where they place a credit card on file and you are charged a flat fee, then when you return the unit you will be credited for your actual charges and refunded anything over the flat fee. And if you wanted to keep the unit then we could just charge the card for the full amount and apply the rental fees to the actual unit cost.

What does everybody think of that?