CPAPtalk.com

-tim wrote:If you need a humidifier, get a passive one because if you use too much power, your seat row may not have any more power for the rest of the flight. Get a back flow valve that will keep the water out of your pump.

I've used cpap o- board since I started the hose two+ years ago, more than half dozen R/T trans Pacific flights, lasting from 14-17 hrs. I recall reading power outlets not sufficient to run heated humidifier. Tim's idea of running in passive mode is a good one. Good luck.

http://www.cpap-supply.com/Articles.asp?ID=128

The most common type of power outlet on airplanes these days is called EmPower. You have a couple of options for hooking up your CPAP machine to the EmPower outlet. First, you could simply buy an EmPower-to-12V adapter, and then hook your CPAP machine up via it's own 12V adapter cable. For added flexibility you could purchase an inverter that could be used with just about every device you might happen to carry on an airplane or in your car. The inverter can plug into the EmPower outlet or a standard 12V outlet. Then all you have to do is plug your standard AC power cord into the inverter. You can see an example of just such an inverter at http://us.kensington.com/html/10359.html. At under $70, this is a pretty good option considering it's pretty much the only inverter you'd ever need.

Good news for travel CPAP users because the EmPower outlet on airplanes is designed for up to 75 Watts of power consumption.

From physics class we know that the following equation can be used to determine power consumption
Power = Voltage x Current

Thanks for all the advice; I will not be using the humidifier on-board.
Jason

Many airlines now have regular outlets that accept both US and European plugs.

This place is good resource for checking what will be on your flight. http://www.seatguru.com/ Pick your airline then aircraft type and you'll be able to see whether the plane has Empower or AC outlets. I'm finding that more and more have regular AC power these days.

VikingGnome wrote:The most common type of power outlet on airplanes these days is called EmPower.

DC EmPower was once the most common, but as older aircraft have been retired, that's no longer the case (though not all the relevant web sites seem to have realised with this as yet). The most common type of power outlet in commercial aircraft nowadays is 110VAC (usually at 400Hz).

VikingGnome wrote:Good news for travel CPAP users because the EmPower outlet on airplanes is designed for up to 75 Watts of power consumption.

With "up to" being a important constraint.

In practice DC Empower is supplied by an underseat unit that delivers power to 2 or 3 adjoining seats (depending on the configuration of the aircraft concerned), and the maximum rating for any available DC EmPower underseat unit is not adequate to supply 75W of energy to all those seats concurrently.

That wasn't too much of a problem in the early years of this century, but in these days of prevasive mobile entertainment devices, its becoming increasingly common to find all at-seat power in use for something or other. Astronics, one of the major suppliers of in-seat power systems, indicates that "90% of airline passengers today carry mobile electronic devices onboard".

BTW, the "shared at-seat power" issue is also applies for 110V AC outlets, though they have higher power ratings to start with than DC EmPower.



Cheers,

Bill

billbolton wrote: BTW, the "shared at-seat power" issue is also applies for 110V AC outlets, though they have higher power ratings to start with than DC EmPower.

These devices protect from overload by resetting. Some of them reset until the aircraft's power is off so if its overloaded, it turns off won't come back on.

Don't be so serious. I was using humidifier when i was travelling with FINNAIR flight. As long as I have the permission to use cpap on board, no cabin crew has checked if i was using humidifier.

So -- to followup, I used my PRS1 onboard without the humidifier, both coming and going on a 14-16 hour flight on an Airbus.
I didn't have any problem w/o the humidification (which surprises me, since that air is so dry...).
No problems except that on the return flight the seat outlet was dead, but the flight attendant was very helpful and after trying to activate it by switching the outlets off and on a few times, she switched my seat with a seat with an operating outlet.
The seat they switched me to was in the first row (business class), and while I used the usual outlet at the seat, I also noticed there was a panel in the side wall of the plane labeled "medical outlet" -- apparently this is a (more robust?) outlet for medical equipment and/or is used for an oxygen concentrator, they didn't really seem to know all that much about it when I asked.

Because seat outlets may not be working properly, I can see that if you really want to try to guarantee use of your cpap onboard (assuming the airline/crew have no issue with it), you have to bring a battery along...

I would also recommend contacting the airline ahead of time, as it was in my record that I would be using cpap.

Cheers,
Jason