Hurricane Isaac... and xPAP

We, I need a comment from someone who is knowledgeable about batteries and how to keep them charged.

I have a mid-2009 Mac Book Pro which has a Li-On Battery. Apple, who is about as technically competent as any one else recommends for my a Li-On battery, (like in my mid-2009) Mac Book Pro that:

Once a month, completely discharge the battery. Then completely recharge it.

This has worked pretty well for the MBP, as its battery, which has an estimated life of two years, is still pretty good. I use the MBP a lot. I have also used this on my Cell Phones. When I first get them and charge them for the first time, they do not seem to hold a charge very well. So I completely discharge the cell phone and charge it again. I did this power charge cycle twice for my cell phone, and now it goes days before actually needing to recharge it. I have the cell phone on all the time, do not talk much, or use its internet capability.

There seems to be some advice not to completely discharge a battery. Might be true for some batteries, like a lead cell battery, or the deep cycle marine battery some are using. I dunno.

I hope for some knowledgeable person to jump in and advise us on this.

Here is a good thread by John Fisher on building a battery backup. I built mine using his instructions. viewtopic/t49115/viewtopic.php?p=449334

brucifer wrote:I just did a quick check on ebay, and you could get a decent generator (2 hp/1200w) for about $130, and that includes free shipping. It's definitely worth having something like that on hand.

Thanks, Brucifer -- yes, the heat and humidity was pretty bad, but I lived through that before -- a battery powered fan works pretty well, and we have enough insulation on our house that the interior temp was generally around 15 degrees less than the outside temperature. The problem with a generator like you describe is that I have to have some place to store it in between uses, and I don't. We lost our detached garage in Katrina, had to borrow money to get it torn down because refused, and we haven't had the money to rebuild it. Or buy a decent sized Rubbermaid or similar storage shed.

We can't keep a generator in the house!

(And yes, I do know about only running it in a well ventilated, not-enclosed area.)

purple - all I know is that with this cpap battery backup I now have (see my post in this thread), I just have to top up the charge every 2-3 months or more often if I have used it.

I live in an area where we seldom lose power so I'm not really interested (and don't have the money for) a battery backup or generator at this time. I already own a 100 watt inverter that plugs into the power port in my car. Is there any reason in an emergency I can't just spend the night in my car with my cpap plugged into the inverter?

123.Shawn T.W. wrote:If you go down about half a page you can find the comercial size ones where all you gotta do is add your own two big batteries ... Of course spending that kinda of money you mights well buy a Honda EU2000i generator and keep your fridge going all night too! $999 was what I paid for mine this past spring!

This is where I bought mine from http://www.wisesales.com/eu2000ia-honda ... Eo5Y4l5nTo they also make a smaller one, but the price is not that much less, and would not start your fridge ...

The problem with cheap made in china generators are that's what they are! They do not provide clean consistent power, stick with an invertor type both Honda and Yamaha have good reputations and long life, Honda's have been known to exceed 25,000 hours of use, yes the same model little EU2000i that I have, is why I bought it!

I know Honda makes good generators. My problem is that I have no place to store one between uses. No garage. No carport.

I know Honda makes good generators. My problem is that I have no place to store one between uses. No garage. No carport.

I just bought a Honda EU1000i to recharge a battery to run my VPAP when camping. I found that a regular automobile battery powered my machine for 3 nights -- this was without using the humidifier. The Honda recharged it in about 4 hours. The unit is very quiet when running and it's size is 17.7" x 9.4" x 15.0" . It weighs 29 pounds. I think it's the perfect solution for xPAP emergency backup.

I also want to add that I'm very sorry you went through such a terrible time, and understand why you wouldn't ever want to face this again.

My understanding of Li-ion batteries is that you should not discharge them fully at one fell swoop to try and regenerate them or something, a full discharge decreases their life. You can charge them before they're fully discharged, and in fact, that's recommended. Yes, Apple says that your battery should be fully recharged once a month, I read that as well, but the way that I read it is that they were talking about cumulative charge-discharge cycles, not just fully discharging and recharging in one sitting. What that means is as long as you have the equivalent of at least one full discharge and recharge cycle per month you're fine. That can be just 10 or 15% discharge and recharge per day...if you do that 30 times per month you've covered your full discharge and recharge for the month and more.

There's a lot of conflicting information out there, but this is my understanding for Li-ion technology. There were older battery technologies where if you didn't actually do a full discharge and recharge occasionally, you'd get what was called "hysteresis", and the battery would lose the ability to take a charge and become useless after while. In fact, you could sometimes rescue one of these older batteries by fully discharging and recharging it, at least for a while.

Oh, by the way, I also have one of the Super CPAP battery packs (also the C-222), and it lasts several days with the S9 CPAP as long as I use passive humdification. I didn't get it for extended power failures, I got it for camping, but it will work fine for power failures as well.

Would it be possible to get a "storage closet"? I'm not sure what there really called but like a small garden tool shed where you would store garden stuff?

I believe they make smallish ones like 3'X5' that you could lag bolt to the side of your house or sturdy fence ... Or get a really heavy duty (1/2" or larger") chain and locked to the back porch, then throw an old tarp over it, along with a spare can of gas ...

I know Honda makes a "security handle" thingy which fits over the regular plastic handle, to prevent just cutting the plastic and stealing the generator!

As far as lead acid batteries go ... If there deep cycle batteries (the proper type for this situation) they do not recommend more than a 50% discharge, before recharging (don't let them sit at 50% for long, or it will be junk!) regular starting batteries (like in a car) act about the same way except they wear out quicker, and generally don't like being discharged more than 20% (that's why they work, but are not ideal for our use)

I use a power inverter every night to power my APAP and humidifier, I use a 300 watt inverter, as my PRS1 550's power supply is rated for 2.1 amps at 120 volt A/C, multiplied together we get 252 watts ... That designed to be able to handle the blower running at 20cm H2O and heater cranked to 5! So lower settings would use less power.

Another idea would be to revisit the jump pack idea, and plug it into the car to charge every day, or ad suggested get an additional deep cycle battery (different from a Marine, which is kind of a hybrid of the two other types) and use that to extend the jump pack, also remember that you will need the proper 12vdc cord for your machine ...

Hawthorne wrote:I glaze over and understand nothing about battery backup as discussed on this forum. I had an old Respironics battery backup for several years. It worked well but my RA is worse and it is too heavy for me now. <snip> I don't know how helpful that is to you but pass it on anyway.

It's very helpful -- I would probably want the 444 model because of my Bipap, and the probability of long outages.

I already have the correct connector. I bought that several years ago.

My eyes glaze over, too. People who understand this stuff don't understand how incomprehensible it is to anyone without their knowledge.

If you're going to run a CPAP machine off of a a battery w/ an inverter, it's best to use a deep-cycle marine battery than a car battery. Car batteries are rated in Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) and are made with a series of thin lead plates. They are designed to give a strong boost or push to turn over a car engine, but they are not designed to provide power for a long duration of time. OTOH, marine (deep-cycle) batteries are made with thicker lead plates and are designed to power equipment (such as a trolling motor) for longer periods of time.

The downside to both deep-cycle and car batteries is that over time they each lose their capacity to hold a charge, irregardless of whether or not you have used the battery or recharged it. The upshot is that they are silent. For a situation such as camping, a deep-cycle battery with an inverter is the way to go. For emergency power generation, I would go with a gas-powered generator hands down.

The cheap Made-in-China generators are probably not as good as the Honda (Made-in-Japan) units, but if you're only going to need a small dedicated generator a few days out of the year to power a CPAP machine, then the low cost of the Chinese generators makes sense. If you want to also power the fridge, the deep freezer, and an A/C window unit or two, then going with a more reliable (and expensive) brand makes better sense.

Kiralynx wrote:

brucifer wrote:I just did a quick check on ebay, and you could get a decent generator (2 hp/1200w) for about $130, and that includes free shipping. It's definitely worth having something like that on hand.

Thanks, Brucifer -- yes, the heat and humidity was pretty bad, but I lived through that before -- a battery powered fan works pretty well, and we have enough insulation on our house that the interior temp was generally around 15 degrees less than the outside temperature. The problem with a generator like you describe is that I have to have some place to store it in between uses, and I don't. We lost our detached garage in Katrina, had to borrow money to get it torn down because refused, and we haven't had the money to rebuild it. Or buy a decent sized Rubbermaid or similar storage shed.

We can't keep a generator in the house!

(And yes, I do know about only running it in a well ventilated, not-enclosed area.)

Kiralynx, those Rubbermade sheds are nice, but I wouldn't want to take a chance on one surviving a hurricane. When I lived in Slidell, I tore down my old wooden shed and replaced it with a Sears 6' x 8' shed. It looked very similar to this model I saw on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Arrow-SA86-A-8-Fe ... B001F0A3NI The advantage is that I was able to anchor it to the old slab. Of course, if you had one of these, you could use it to store a lot more than a power generator.

I hope you're able figure out some way to get an emergency generator. I hate hearing that in addition to dealing with the post-hurricane problems, you had to suffer without your xPAP therapy. You went through enough without having to deal with that as well.

squid13 wrote:Here is a good thread by John Fisher on building a battery backup. I built mine using his instructions. viewtopic/t49115/viewtopic.php?p=449334

It's a great thread. And halfway through, despite the fact that John's explanations are usually quite clear and concise, my eyes glazed over.

I dunno -- what part of "I don't understand any of this. I don't need to understand any of it for anything else in my life. I just want a set-up that works" is unclear?

brucifer wrote:If you're going to run a CPAP machine off of a a battery w/ an inverter, it's best to use a deep-cycle marine battery than a car battery. Car batteries are rated in Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) and are made with a series of thin lead plates. They are designed to give a strong boost or push to turn over a car engine, but they are not designed to provide power for a long duration of time. OTOH, marine (deep-cycle) batteries are made with thicker lead plates and are designed to power equipment (such as a trolling motor) for longer periods of time.

The downside to both deep-cycle and car batteries is that over time they each lose their capacity to hold a charge, irregardless of whether or not you have used the battery or recharged it. The upshot is that they are silent. For a situation such as camping, a deep-cycle battery with an inverter is the way to go. For emergency power generation, I would go with a gas-powered generator hands down.

The cheap Made-in-China generators are probably not as good as the Honda (Made-in-Japan) units, but if you're only going to need a small dedicated generator a few days out of the year to power a CPAP machine, then the low cost of the Chinese generators makes sense. If you want to also power the fridge, the deep freezer, and an A/C window unit or two, then going with a more reliable (and expensive) brand makes better sense.

I need to run the fridge and freezer, as well. But I know from Katrina experience that it's possible to run the fridge and freezer for a few hours each day, usually during the hottest part of the day to make sure everything is frozen solid, and handle it that way. For this one, I had packed the freezer with extra ziplock bags of water to create as much thermal mass as possible, and most of my stuff was, amazingly, still frozen after seven days.

What would be helpful would be a battery set-up to run the Bipap at night, and then be able to recharge the battery from the generator.

Though I have to admit that being able to run one of our window units in the bedroom at night would surely make the endurance much easier. That, of course, means running the generator all night.