C-pap

[Donna D.]

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

I am a member and have been for some time. I used to belong to the beer party. And before that the birthday party.
Iowa Dave

I'm a member of the Cocktail Party.

[DJW]

We are trying to find the 12 volt inverter that uses 30 amp..any one have a photo or hyper link

[BigSwede]

I use a Devilbiss IntelliPap. It runs on 120V or straight 12V, so I can plug it into any cig lighter/12V outlet without a converter. It draws about 1.3 amps (I do NOT use a humidifier), so pretty minimal really. I also have a little lithium battery pack that has a 12V outlet built in, and I can charge in the vehicle while driving around during the day. It will power the CPAP all night, no problem.

[Hancock]

I use Resmed Airsense 10. It actually operates on 24 volts. A 12 to 24 volt adaptor is sold by Resmed at a high price. Several years ago I bought an adapter from Amazon that works very well. I added a 12 volt outlet in the cabinet above the bed in our 21 (thanks to Tom Fowler on that). We are now full time in our 21, and I run the Resmed on 12 volt every night.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[TTMartin]

Originally Posted by Honair

My CPAP is a 12 volt machine and works just fine..... does not drain the battery much for a nice nights sleep. I bought the CPAP as a 120 volt.... yet it turned out that it was a 12 volt with a transformer to covert the 120 to 12 volt..... so all I had to do was buy a 12 volt cord. :-)

I had a similar experience. I purchased an official 12 volt cord for mine for over $100 USD, thinking it must of had some sort of special electronics in it. When it came it was just a straight through cord. I sent it back and made my own 12 volt cord.

I have a counter top extension on the bedside of the stove wall in my Escape 19. I had Escape put a 12 volt plug next to the 120 volt plug below it. I've had no issues running my CPAP machine on 12 volts there.

[NEWYORKHILLBILLY]

I also use the resmed 10 with the converter

https://www.thecpapshop.com/dc-power...gaAhLqEALw_wcB


I also use this side cover. The side cover conveniently fits over the area where the humidifier chamber would be located on your machine. The side cover lets you use your machine without having to use the HumidAir Humidifier. when you install this is will automatically turn off the humidifier.



https://www.cpapdirect.com/parts-and...AaAr4KEALw_wcB


I keep in in the cabinet above the bed . I wired it on its own 12 volt circuit with a switch . at night I just open the overhead cabinet and drop out the mask and hose and hit the switch.

[BigSwede]

Originally Posted by NEWYORKHILLBILLY

I keep in in the cabinet above the bed . I wired it on its own 12 volt circuit with a switch . at night I just open the overhead cabinet and drop out the mask and hose and hit the switch.

That's a good idea. This spring I am going to install another 12V outlet by the bed for my CPAP, and hadn't thought about the overhead cabinet.

[mel99203]

This string is timely for me. I'm a month into membership in the CPAP club and am working on my buildsheet for a 17B. (I already planned on adding 12V outlets.) Thanks for the advice and links for the power adapter and side cover.

Quite a few people have commented on putting the CPAP in an upper cupboard. Has anyone done that when using the humidifier? Were there any problems? The ResMed AirSense 10 user guide includes the following under "Caution": "If you use the humidifier, always place the device on a level surface lower than your head to prevent the mask and air tubing from filling with water." Even with it on a lower surface at home, I initially had water pool in the nasal mask, which was solved by lowering the humidity level.

[NEWYORKHILLBILLY]

I cant answer the question on water in the tube as i have never used the Humidifier while camping. The humidifier draws a lot of current. how much current depends on your setting . the link below will give you the amps draw depending on you settings. The unit itself does not draw that much. It can draw as much as 3 time the furnace and unlike the furnace it does not shut down at all. I don't think my 6 volt batteries would Handel it for more than maybe one night. I have found it does not bother me not to have the heated tube or humidifier on. I suppose when we had power I could have used it but never did. If you camping would be mostly with power then you may want to set it up differently. I also looked into putting it under the bed and have a small hole for the hose to come up at the corner of the mattress.I almost mounted there. Then I realized It gets could under there at night sometimes in the 38-45 degrees range. My concern was breathing that cold air so I abandoned that Idea.

https://document.resmed.com/en-us/do...de_glo_eng.pdf

[BigSwede]

Originally Posted by mel99203

This string is timely for me. I'm a month into membership in the CPAP club and am working on my buildsheet for a 17B. (I already planned on adding 12V outlets.) Thanks for the advice and links for the power adapter and side cover.

Quite a few people have commented on putting the CPAP in an upper cupboard. Has anyone done that when using the humidifier? Were there any problems? The ResMed AirSense 10 user guide includes the following under "Caution": "If you use the humidifier, always place the device on a level surface lower than your head to prevent the mask and air tubing from filling with water." Even with it on a lower surface at home, I initially had water pool in the nasal mask, which was solved by lowering the humidity level.

Yes I would not put a CPAP with humidifier in the upper cabinet, as condensation inside the hose will run down to you.

I have been using a CPAP for 20 years, and long ago was able to wean myself off of a humidifier, which simplified my CPAP use greatly. The only time I have trouble with low humidity is right now in the dead of winter when the air is very dry, but even then it just manifests in some sneezing, which I can live with compared to fighting the hose rainout and tending to/cleaning the humidifier.

And, of course, no humidifier means greatly reduced CPAP power consumption when camping.

[tdf-texas]

Originally Posted by Hancock

I use Resmed Airsense 10. It actually operates on 24 volts. A 12 to 24 volt adaptor is sold by Resmed at a high price. Several years ago I bought an adapter from Amazon that works very well. I added a 12 volt outlet in the cabinet above the bed in our 21 (thanks to Tom Fowler on that). We are now full time in our 21, and I run the Resmed on 12 volt every night.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

You're welcome! I'm glad it's working out for you.

Just a reminder for anyone that wants to add a 12v outlet for their CPAP - you might want to run a separate wiring run for that outlet and put it on it's own fuse depending on the CPAP current draw.

It would be bad to have the CPAP quit on you in the middle of the night because of a circuit overload.

[NEWYORKHILLBILLY]

Originally Posted by tdf-texas

You're welcome! I'm glad it's working out for you.

Just a reminder for anyone that wants to add a 12v outlet for their CPAP - you might want to run a separate wiring run for that outlet and put it on it's own fuse depending on the CPAP current draw.

It would be bad to have the CPAP quit on you in the middle of the night because of a circuit overload.

This is a good recommendation. I paid ETI for a 12 volt drop in that cabinet . I was suppressed to find out that they just taped into the cabinet light . I ended up running new wires and putting it on its own circuit. In my case I did more of a permanent install . I cut the plug off the converter and wired it direct to a switch. The resmed converter will draw power even when cpap is off. there is a switch on there 12 volt plug. I found it was a pain to reach in the back of the cabinet to turn it off and sometimes I would forget . This was my reason for doing it the way I did.



(On water in the hose) At home I have my hose coming down from above,But there is a loop below the machine . I find if I do ever get water in the hose it will collect in the loop .I think the simple gravity solves the problem.

[emers382]

Originally Posted by jxoco

I think the Resmed brand is 24 volts so I would have to run that one from the inverter unless there is a 12 volt car type of adapter for that brand.

See post #31 I answered that question.

on edit: I just now saw post #44 which also answered it.

[Shiny]

Great info here, thanks to all.

Please forgive the long post but I've got questions!

My wife and I both use Resmed Airsense 10 at home with humidification. We both have Resmed Minis that have worked for us when travelling so we tried them on our latest outing in the Escape without shore power. We have 2 ETI-installed rooftop solar panels and 2 "standard" 6V batteries. The only way I have to monitor power usage is the GoPower controller.

We did not have DC-DC converters for our minis so had to use the inverter. With both minis and the furnace running, we did not have much margin overnight. The GoPower controller would indicate about 85% charge when we went to bed but only about 60% in the morning. It worked out as we had good sun but I was surprised by the loss. Without the sun we would have been recharging off a generator. With a colder night, we might have dipped below the 50% SoC level that is reportedly "safe" for the batteries.

An even bigger issue was humidity. Our campground was at 10,200 ft and with the heater running, the RH in our Escape was effectively zero. The Resmed Minis have a cartridge in the airstream that adds humidity by absorbing/desorbing. It works well enough for me but my wife would do MUCH better if able to use the humidification in the more power-hungry Resmed 10.

So...

1. Is the GoPower SoC indicator accurate? Is this a good way to assess power usage or is there a better way?

2. Is it possible to keep the battery SoC above 50% if we run one Mini and one ResMed 10 for 8 hours? I suspect not, but some comments seem to suggest a "maybe":

Originally Posted by Hancock

I use Resmed Airsense 10. It actually operates on 24 volts. A 12 to 24 volt adaptor is sold by Resmed at a high price. Several years ago I bought an adapter from Amazon that works very well. I added a 12 volt outlet in the cabinet above the bed in our 21 (thanks to Tom Fowler on that). We are now full time in our 21, and I run the Resmed on 12 volt every night.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Hancock - Thanks for the link. I ordered 2 ResMed DC-DC converters for the minis but not yet for the Airsense 10 (expensive). What batteries do you have and do you run the humidifier and/or heated tube?

Originally Posted by emers382

......You do not need to use an inverter for a 24 volt CPAP. You can buy from ResMed for example a 12-24v converter which is what we use. Fortunately our new to us 5.0TA has a 12 volt outlet at base of bed on Beth's side so when boondocking we just switch the 120vAC-24vDC for the 12v-24vDC converter. We use the humidifier and never have had the battery below about 75% even using the furnace.

emers382 - same question... what batteries do you use? Your experience seems way different than ours, given the power consumption is MUCH higher on the ResMed 10 than on the Mini - about 10X current draw per the ResMed table linked by NEWYORKHILLBILLY (thank you for posting this)!

Originally Posted by jxoco

I do have an inverter but I use a 12 volt cigarette socket with a ‘special’ cable to plug into the cpap.
Like someone else said my cpap has a power brick that is normal household A/C input and it outputs 12 volts DC to the cpap. So with an adapter cord it just plugs into a cigarette lighter socket.
It is a phillips dreamstation. And the 12 volt cable was listed in the manual as an optional thing I could order.
It is better to run a 12volt thing straight from the cigarette lighter, than to boost the 12 volts up to 120 a/c only to have a power brick convert it back to 12 volts again.
I think the Resmed brand is 24 volts so I would have to run that one from the inverter unless there is a 12 volt car type of adapter for that brand.

jxoco - This makes sense but does anyone know how much of a difference this will make? How "inefficient" is the inverter? How inefficient is the Resmed power supply? Will we see a huge improvement with the DC-DC converters or only a little?

Our Escape has a microwave that draws some power from the inverter just sitting idle. Are there other power drains whenever the inverter is on? I have read the inverter itself consumes some power so I'm not sure how much of our battery loss was from the Mini CPAPs and how much was just from having the inverter on...

3. Is there a practical (ie power-efficient) way to humidify the Escape?

I ordered a USB-powered ultrasonic humidifier but suspect it won't come close to raising the interior RH to a comfortable level (ie 30% or so).

Any such thing as a propane-powered RV humidifier with a humidistat?

4. If there is no way run both the ResMed 10 and a Mini off our 2 6V batteries, how much more battery capacity would it take?

Thanks again to all,

Mike