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I have had five power outages at night while sleeping in 2010. It only took once for me to wake up gasping for breath to build a auto battery backup for my cpap. It is well worth it, knowing that I can go to sleep and sleep through till morning and actually wake up.

chunkyfrog wrote:As long as I have no choice but to get a DC to AC inverter,
I guess I need to get one powerful enough to also run both units, a computer, phone charger and mini fridge.
Maybe I can plug it into the Prius--now that's a big battery.

Your Prius battery could run it for a few months. john

nyelement wrote:... How often does your power go out that you even need to worry about all of this? ...

That's a good question and one thing I tried to address in my Battery Backup Design. In my case, I live in hurricane country. So, when it goes, it tends to go for a long time. Though we can usually get out and get to some place to recharge the battery (hotel, business, whatever), it often takes a couple days before we can get to an alternate location. So, I wanted a unit that could last a longish time.

Anyone living under the threat of natural disasters (snow storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding, earthquakes, etc) should consider a battery backup. But not everyone needs one.

nanwilson wrote:I don't think it's Resmed. It only cost me $172 canadian (would be less in U.S.) bought a 12 volt deep cycle marine battery and a modified sine wave inverter...setup works on both my Fisher Paykel 604 and my Respironics M series.
N

you need a pure sine inverter when you have a humidifier other wise you will fry the whole works, my friend did that to his. That is with a S8 elite with humidifier.

granti55 wrote: you need a pure sine inverter when you have a humidifier other wise you will fry the whole works, my friend did that to his. That is with a S8 elite with humidifier.

S9, even with humidifier, does not need a pure sine inverter. Modified works quite well.

billbolton wrote:The catch for those in North America appears to be that there are no similar 120V units on the market, as far as I can see.

Not a problem. All we need is the Australian power cord for the power supply. The power supply accepts 120v to 240v input. Many other power supplies, like for laptops, are the same. That's why they have a cord that plugs into the power supply as well as the wall receptacle. Different country, different cord, same power supply!

Added: OK, after looking at the web site I see we could not use it as a UPS because it has a 240 volt input. But then again, if it will accept 60 Hz input we could always manage to plug it into our 240 mains, probably. On the other hand I could use it. I already have a 240v UPS for my computer with a 120/240v transformer for input and a 240/120v trans for output.

nyelement wrote:I have one question. How often does your power go out that you even need to worry about all of this? I lost power in my house last year a total of 3 times and only once during the night.

Obviously you don't live in Texas.

My golf card has arrived all set up. BUT I'M AFRAID TO TRY IT.
I think I'll wait till Monday just in case the whole thing blows up...
My sleep clinic is closed on Sat and Sun. if I would need a loaner.

Now, if the power were to go out tonight....well then I would try it tonight...

Jazzer Plug a 100 Watt incandescent light into the inverter and let it run for a couple of hours to test your system out before plugging in your Xpap. If the light works with no brightening or dimming them try it with your Xpap

Ok, Im really not following the need to spend $470.00 to adapt your golf cart to supply you standby power when you have a generator. (yes, I read your not wanting to have to deal with it in the middle of the night.) If the power were going to be out for many hours or days as is common in Texas, (I live there also)wouldnt you be running the gen. anyway? I would have put the money into making the gen. set up as easy to use as possible and purchase the Resmed back up when it finally comes to market. Just sayin....
Bob

rad3766 wrote:Ok, Im really not following the need to spend $470.00 to adapt your golf cart to supply you standby power when you have a generator. (yes, I read your not wanting to have to deal with it in the middle of the night.) If the power were going to be out for many hours or days as is common in Texas, (I live there also)wouldnt you be running the gen. anyway? I would have put the money into making the gen. set up as easy to use as possible and purchase the Resmed back up when it finally comes to market. Just sayin....
Bob

Hi Bob.
You may be right my husband would agree with you I'm sure. But the propane generator we got has a pull thing like a lawn mower we use to have a long time ago.
I could never start that thing. If there is a storm and the power starts to blink, I almost go into a panic thinking I might not be able to use my c-pap, therefore, I would not sleep that night.
Before my diagnois I didn't sleep for four day, and I never, ever want to go thru that again, not even for one night.
But, my husband, who doesn't have sleep apnea just doesn't really understand. So I would not even ask him to get the generator out of the garage and drag it to the backyard then run the cords in thru with window then pull that starter cord at 2A.M. Maybe by the time he did all that the power would be back on or maybe not.
But now I won't have to ask. I'll just plug into the golf cart.

I didn't know how to make the generator set up easier. (ofcourse I didn't know how to do this with the golf cart either)
The generator story is a long one, and I'll spare you but to say I'm married to a pencil pusher. I'm bad at this stuff, he's worse if that's possible.
Yep $470 bucks is a lot to spend for this, but to me it's piece of mind in the middle of the night.
I think I've already spent over half of what a whole house generator would have cost between this set-up and the propane generator and all the other crap. I told him we should just have gotten a whole house one...

Did I mention he's a bit cheap?

jazzer4 wrote:Did I mention he's a bit cheap?

He's not cheap.

He is just excessively discriminatingly selectively restrictive in his pecuniary/merchandise exchange practices!!!

idamtnboy wrote:

jazzer4 wrote:Did I mention he's a bit cheap?

He's not cheap.

He is just excessively discriminatingly selectively restrictive in his pecuniary/merchandise exchange practices!!!

I'll say!

Really, he did put out quite a bit of cash to help make me more comfortable and no worry so much. He's a good guy. We really need a live in handyman.

physicsbob wrote:Jazzer Plug a 100 Watt incandescent light into the inverter and let it run for a couple of hours to test your system out before plugging in your Xpap. If the light works with no brightening or dimming them try it with your Xpap

Thanks Bob. I will do that today. Good idea. The golf cart guys put an electrical outlet on the outside of the cart. Are you saying to plug a 100 Watt lamp into that, or into the inverter which they have screwed down by the batteries underneath the seat?

jazzer4 wrote:

physicsbob wrote:Jazzer Plug a 100 Watt incandescent light into the inverter and let it run for a couple of hours to test your system out before plugging in your Xpap. If the light works with no brightening or dimming them try it with your Xpap

Thanks Bob. I will do that today. Good idea. The golf cart guys put an electrical outlet on the outside of the cart. Are you saying to plug a 100 Watt lamp into that, or into the inverter which they have screwed down by the batteries underneath the seat?

Same place you will plug in your extension cord to the S9.

jazzer4 wrote:Did I mention he's a bit cheap?

Susan, thanks for the response and explanation to my question. Im a bit 'frugal' myself, thats why I was leaning towards focusing on the gen as a cheaper but not necessarily easier solution.
Bob