Not enough moisture with new Respironics Humidifier help!

Hi,
I just wanted to let everyone know the new bit of info that I ran into the other day. They are designed to not put out too much humidity so there is rainout in the tubing. For many patients, this is not enough moisture. I asked my rep about this and she told me that since they have had these issues, the PR machines are equipped to also give the "classic" humidity settings. It will make the humidifier heat more. This may cause rainout (moisture in your tubing) but that can be fixed with insulation sleeves or other fixes.

Here is Respironics idea behind the new humidifier:
System One Humidity Control
Breakthrough technology that eliminates rainout in the hose


Even in changing environmental conditions, consistent humidification levels are preserved throughout each night thanks to our advanced humidity control technology. By analyzing ambient temperature, relative humidity and patient flow, the device delivers optimum humidity – and ultimate comfort – to the patient while also dramatically reducing rainout.



•System One Humidity Control prevents rainout by maintaining a consistent mask humidity.
•Patients choose the mask humidity setting (1 - 5) that is most comfortable for them.
•System One Humidity Control maintains a consistent mask humidity by monitoring and adjusting for changes in room temperature and room humidity.
•Other manufacturers' devices only monitor, and adjust for, room temperature; as a result, rainout may occur.


Anyway, you can switch the humidifier to classic settings by going to the clinical setup menu and select humidifier setting. While this number is highlighted, press and hold down the ramp button. The machine will beep. It should then have a setting of C1, C2 etc. This will be your classic humdifier setting and will give you more moisture than the normal settings.
Hope this helps someone.

Thanks very much. System One is my first Respironics, I found I needed to crank a lot my humidifier but I thought that was normal (4).

With the S8 I was at 2, although I know the two humidifiers are different I found the difference very high, I had only one more setting left with the System one and that's it no more place to increase humidity.

I will keep the information to change the humidifier's setting on winter time when it becomes very dry here in the house.

Thank you for posting this! I LOVE the anti-rainout mode and I will use it 99% of the time, but occasionally, when I get sick, I use the Oracle mask and its simply not enough to keep my throat from getting soar from being too dry.

This will help with that significantly.

Wondering if some Respironics engineer got his units crossed between metric and non-metric.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Eversince Spring got here I thougfht my machine was broken. Even on "5" I'm dry. The water is warm and so is the plate under it, so I thought it was working. Now I'll set it up!

Someone that is good at the Wiki stuff really should add this to the cpap wiki.

Has anyone actually gotten this to work? I've tried it every way I can think of, and it never switches to the classic mode.

DreamStalker wrote:Wondering if some Respironics engineer got his units crossed between metric and non-metric.

Did a System One crash into Mars?
(The planet, not the Aussie.)

blakepro wrote:Has anyone actually gotten this to work? I've tried it every way I can think of, and it never switches to the classic mode.

Guess not?

blakepro wrote:Has anyone actually gotten this to work? I've tried it every way I can think of, and it never switches to the classic mode.

I got it to change haven't tried it just yet but certainly will. Right after I put some search words here - PR S1, PRS1, sys 1, system one humidifier control doesn't have enuff moisture. How to change PRS1 to Classic mode.

Go into setup. Rotate dial to hilite the word "Humidifier" then press and hold the "Ramp" button until it beeps. You should see a C appear before the number as in "C1". I tried several things before and one was to set the number to "1" - so if you are having troubles give that a try "1" but the cursor was hilighting the word "Humidifier" and it was NOT flashing. So that could also make a difference.

Ok off to give it a test drive to see if I can tell the diff.

HTH & Good Luck Mr. Gorsky

obtw - I could not find it in my manual. If you do please let me know where.
EDIT : Found it in my bipap User Manual on pg9. I did not see it in the Humidifier Manual.

GumbyCT wrote:

blakepro wrote:Has anyone actually gotten this to work? I've tried it every way I can think of, and it never switches to the classic mode.

I got it to change haven't tried it just yet but certainly will. Right after I put some search words here - PR S1, PRS1, sys 1, system one humidifier control doesn't have enuff moisture. How to change PRS1 to Classic mode.

Go into setup. Rotate dial to hilite the word "Humidifier" then press and hold the "Ramp" button until it beeps. You should see a C appear before the number as in "C1". I tried several things before and one was to set the number to "1" - so if you are having troubles give that a try "1" but the cursor was hilighting the word "Humidifier" and it was NOT flashing. So that could also make a difference.

Ok off to give it a test drive to see if I can tell the diff.

HTH & Good Luck Mr. Gorsky

obtw - I think this is an undocumented feature as I could not find it in my manual. If you do please let me know where.

Thanks for the details. Yeah, I still cant get it to work. I honestly think my machine wont do it. Can you tell me what firmware your machine has? I think it shows the firmware version when you first plug it in. I think I have one of the very first revisions on the firmware and that they put it in later.

For PR System One Auto APAP with version 1.24 firmware (to check your version, pull the plug and plug back in, it will show up on the LCD screen):

To change from System One humidification to classic, access the Provider Mode by turning wheel to Setup and press control wheel and ramp button at same time for 5 seconds until double beep.

While in Provider Mode turn wheel to Setup and press to select,
scroll to SYSTEM ONE humidification (you will only see SYSTEM at first, but the text will scroll through SYSTEM ONE Humidification, it is one line up from Humidifier where you set the 0-5 value) and press to select,
turn wheel to select OFF and press to select (you will now see that on the next line below for Humidifier, the value now includes a "C"),
turn wheel to Back and press to select, and
turn wheel to Exit and press to exit Provider Mode.

I've been running in classic mode this winter. It didn't work exactly like the directions say, I had to fiddle around to get it to go into classic mode (and hence, I can't tell you what I did, exactly ).

I didn't really want or need more humidity, I wanted slightly warmer air. We have a fairly high relative humidity, and the heating plate never warmed up EVER except when I accidentally ran out of wanter . On classic mode, the heating plate does warm up just a little and the air, while still quite cool, is not ARCTIC cold. It's just warm enough that I don't want to run screaming away from the outflow vent all night long. I do use water a lot faster with classic mode, so I know it's working.

blakepro wrote:Can you tell me what firmware your machine has?

My firmware version is V1.24 - that is a good question too. Let's see how many diff versions are out.

sydneybird wrote:For PR System One Auto APAP:

To change from System One humidification to classic, access the Provider Mode by turning wheel to Setup and press control wheel and ramp button at same time for 5 seconds until double beep.

While in Provider Mode turn wheel to Setup and press to select,
scroll to SYSTEM ONE humidification (you will only see SYSTEM at first, but the text will scroll through SYSTEM ONE Humidification, it is one line up from Humidifier where you set the 0-5 value) and press to select,
turn wheel to select OFF and press to select (you will now see that on the next line below for Humidifier, the value now includes a "C"),
turn wheel to Back and press to select, and
turn wheel to Exit and press to exit Provider Mode.

Excellent instructions. Conversely, IF you then go back and turn "System One Humidification" to On it automatically turns the "Classic Mode" back OFF. You can have one or the other but NOT both.

As for warming the air - I know when I first started I was using a FFM with a Plus model tank which had a very nice pre-warming feature on the HH. Don't even ask me why the didn't include that in the M series, after all the electronics was already designed and working. But what I wanted to say is the cold air bothered my nose too esp. after switching to the M which did not have the pre-warm feature. My RT suggested I heat the water in the microwave.

Now onto the PRS1 - the air seems to warm up rather quickly for me. Whether it is the hose cover I have or just me now used to this therapy I do not know. But now the air seems plenty warm to me, almost too warm.

But come to think of it - it certainly could be that now I have my machine on the floor but in a plastic Sterilite container. In which case it very well could be the air the machine is taking in is much warmer.

obtw - NOW I also use a nasal pillows mask instead of the FFM blowing the air on my nose the air goes inside the nostrils. That could also make a diff.

GumbyCT wrote:

blakepro wrote:Can you tell me what firmware your machine has?

My firmware version is V1.24 - that is a good question too. Let's see how many diff versions are out.

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See, I'm on V1.07 and it doesn't even have some of the things you guys are mentioning in the menu. Although, I suspect I may have something in my clinicians menu that you dont though: GSM time offset settings.

Am I right? They removed that in later versions of the firmware. I dont know if they ever put it back in, but there was a while that it wasn't included.

I wonder if there is a way to update the firmware of the machine via memory card or something.