12 volt cord for PR1: what can it do?

I'm looking at the 12-volt power cord for the Philips Respironics System One, and I haven't been able to find much info on how it can be used. The PR1 manual refers to the instructions that come with the cord, but I haven't found those on respironics.com, or anywhere else.

Can the 12 volt cord be used with mains power at the same time, as a battery backup? If so, will it charge the battery when the power comes back on?

Alternatively, can I run the machine from the battery all the time with the mains on and the battery charging?

And is there a way to power just the flow generator and have the humidfier shut off if the power goes out?

Here are the instructions for the shielded DC power cord by Respironics:

http://www.directhomemedical.com/machin ... 001956.pdf

I believe this is intended for use with a 12V car or marine battery and it sounds like you should not charge the battery while using the cord for the CPAP machine.

This cord plugs into the same spot as the main AC cord that comes with the unit, so you can use one or the other but not both at once.

If you are looking for back-up in case of a power outage, I would think a UPS power supply ususally used for computers might work for a short outage. The CPAP machines use a significant amount of power and need a large battery capacity for extended use, so I am not sure how well these would work for a long outage.

Hope this helps.
Dennis

Otter wrote:I'm looking at the 12-volt power cord for the Philips Respironics System One, and I haven't been able to find much info on how it can be used. And is there a way to power just the flow generator and have the humidfier shut off if the power goes out?

I suspect that the System One has an integral power connector directly to the humidifier that cannot be disconnected.
If operating through a power outage of more than a few minutes ( a computer battery backup system should work fine for that ), you should get a separate humidifier so that the System One is powered by the battery system and the humidifier is powered by the mains. That way the heater in the humidifier will just turn off but the blower in the System One will continue working.

Thanks Dennis. Once I had a look at the manual, I was able to finally find it on Respironics site too.
http://www.respironics.com/UserGuides/U ... DCCord.pdf

UserGuideSheildedDCCord.pdf wrote:WARNING: This cord will allow all of the Respironics CPAP Systems to function throughout their entire pressure ranges except for the REMstar ® Systems. This DC power cord can only be used with the REMstar Systems for pressures of 11 cm H2O or lower.

I believe the PR1 is part of the Remstar line, so that would apply, unless it does not and they just didn't update the manual. It's odd that neither the PR1 user manual nor cpap.com says anything about the 11cm limit, though. And the cord manual seems to treat "Remstar Pro/Plus/Auto/etc." as discreet model names and doesn't have the new models in the fuse list. The manual also doesn't mention the heated humidifier. And then there is what looks supsiciously like a 2001 revision date on the first page.

1008998
JR 11/27/01

All this makes me wonder if the cord and it's manual haven't changed since the old "tank" models, and whether any of this is relevant to the PR1.

Can anyone clarify this?

JDS74 wrote:I suspect that the System One has an integral power connector directly to the humidifier that cannot be disconnected.

I think I read that somewhere, but I'm not 100% sure. Now, the double power cord on the old M series makes sense to me, and I wish they'd kept that feature.

If operating through a power outage of more than a few minutes ( a computer battery backup system should work fine for that ), you should get a separate humidifier so that the System One is powered by the battery system and the humidifier is powered by the mains. That way the heater in the humidifier will just turn off but the blower in the System One will continue working.

I've been thinking about getting an inline humidifier anyway, so that I can use a hepa filter between the flow generator and humidifier to catch pollen and mold spores that get past the PR1's filters.

Looking at several online retailers, it looks like this is still the only cord they offer. Also the 2010 Philips Product Catalog still shows the same product number for the shielded DC cord and the only other DC cord is for BiPAP machines that use a different voltage.

The PR1 manual states that it operates on 12v DC, 5.0A which would lead me to believe that this direct battery connection type cord is correct for this unit as well. I do not think there is a pressure limit of 11 with the PR1 as I found one site that showed battery life durations for pressures up to 20.

The PR1 humidifier is powered from the blower unit so there would be no way to automatically disable. You could manually put the humidifier into passover mode to save battery life.

Dennis

The 12 Volt cord plugs in to where your power brick plugs in, not both. It is a very well made cable with two in line filters and it is fused. I use mine to run both my M series Cpap and humidifier off of a Marine deep cycle battery that is charged by a float charger. This has powered my cpap every night for over a year, through 5 night time power outages, camping for four days without charging and no problems

Thanks for the help, guys. The PR1's 12-volt system isn't everything I could hope for, but it definitely scores a point over the S9's expensive adapter.