Tech has moved along since these articles were written, with many off the shelf LiFePO4 options available. (Though if you do go lead acid, use an AGM; it will save you from many HCL acid spills.) E.g.:
I have a Bioenno Power battery for portable ham radio usage and have had zero problems with it. The capacity is smaller than a CPAP would need but they have plenty of big options.
It's HSO4, not HCl.... but the recommendation stands, the difference is just that the fumes from the acid itself are basically non-existing, so you only have to worry about things under a spill, not above it.
An older friend of mine died suddenly several years ago while joining his young (6-7 y/o) son on an overnight school trip at the Presidio. He suffered from severe sleep apnea but thought he'd be ok for the night without his CPAP. His son was the first to find him in the morning, it was terrible.
I applaud the people experimenting with this and pushing the envelope to enable apnea-sufferers to live un-tethered from their homes.
I had to figure out how to power a CPAP while camping. Some thoughts:
- The article says to use a 12-volt marine deep-cycle battery. Recommend using an AGM battery instead, no need to deal with refilling electrolyte and easier to transport. Also the 35 amp-hour U1 size is only about 22 pounds and fits in a small cooler or tool box.
- Most of the modern machines (Philips or ResMed) have DC-DC power adapters available. Philips is great because you can get a $30 cigarette lighter cable, connect that to a cigarette->alligator clip, and plug that directly to a battery. ResMed's adapters seemed more expensive (they use 24 volts), but at least it's an option. AC inverters are obviously inefficient.
- Not using a humidifier would probably double your battery life. With a 35 AH battery I could get about 3 days with humidifier/heated hose on. 3 days without humidifier left about 40-60% battery life. Of course, this depends on your pressure settings. The humidifier also works passively if not powered, flow of air through the water tray still does some humidification.
My next project, trying to figure out how to add a portable solar panel to the battery.
Unless the cigarette lighter plug has a clip to hold it into place, it seems like a bad connector to use to power a life-safety device since they are easily dislodged (in fact, the spring at the terminal at the end is actively trying to push the plug out of the socket)
I'd probably use something like Anderson power poles if it were me.
Yeah that looks more secure, unfortunately Philips added a DRM-like protection to force everyone to use their cigarette adapter. Basically there is some sort of circuitry that identifies an official cable. Someone on a CPAP message board said it was only a resistor across a 3rd pin in the power plug, but can't find the link.
I plugged an "unofficial" cable, as well as an 18v lithium-ion plug, and got a "Check Power" message on my Dreamstation. The unit was powered, but it refused to start until it detected the "official" cigarette cable.
That seems like an awful use of DRM -- by forcing users to use a substandard connector. It does nothing to protect the device since, as you've done, you can put a cigarette lighter socket on anything.
That's just awful. I might understand ink cartridges, but here afflicted patients suffering from sleep apnea disorder rely on these devices to help them breathe at night, and if you lose the official cable, you are up a crick. We need regulations a la "Right to Repair" against abuse of DRM in this manner. This is literally just screwing over people with disabilities (I have severe sleep apnea myself). I remember having to order a massively overpriced proprietary "smartcard" reader from China to retrieve my patient data from the older Respironics CPAP that I used to have.
This seems like the type of device that should primarily run on battery power, but normally be plugged in and continuously charging via mains power. Having to use an inverter is inefficient and another potential point of failure.
I see there are commercial 'travel' units but is that what people typically use these days?
the big name brands (ResMed and Phillips Respironics) both make "portable" CPAPs that are quite small and portable, but neither makes an 'officially supported' battery solution (even though ResMed has officially supported battery solutions for their larger units)
There are third party battery solutions available, but they are all rather larger than the CPAP units themselves, and come with laptop-sized powerbricks.
I have the ResMed AirMini... and I like it quite a lot. I've had phones that were bigger. (i mean, they were Nokia Communicators... but still) - I use it whenever I sleep in a bed that is not my own. (ResMed says you shouldn't use it as your primary unit. I dunno if that is just "buy more stuff from us" or if there is a real reason, but it's reporting is way worse than the AirSense 10, and sometimes I like the humidifier, and frankly, I'm willing to pay money for a backup) I would like a battery, but between the size and the fact that I haven't slept away from a power outlet for a while, I haven't bothered to buy one.
Is this typical? I don't know. I know a fair number of people who use CPAPs (seriously, if you are overweight, you should probably get it checked out. It's one of the problems modern medical science can actually solve pretty reliably. Makes a big difference.) I'm the only one I know who has a portable cpap. Everyone else I know just carries an extra bag when traveling.
Speaking only for myself, I use a normal power cord. I would kill for a battery. I've forgotten the cord once or twice while traveling and after a day or two without it I feel miserable.
My wife's ResMed unit has an optional DC-to-DC power supply with a cigarette lighter connector. We purchased a deep-cycle lead acid battery, battery box, charger / desulfator, and various cables and came up with a nice modular system that doubles as both a backup for a power outage and something we can take camping. It stays plugged-in at home under her bedside table and is easy to swap-in if need be.
She forgoes the humidifier on camping trips, which tremendously helps the battery life. If we did camping trips longer than 3-day weekends I'd probably also put together a solar charging rig, but as it stands she can get 3 or 4 nights out of our current rig with enough reserve to go a couple more nights if we needed to.
The most costly part was the ResMed DC-to-DC power supply (at about $100, if memory serves). I felt a lot better about using that supply than an inverter and it's more efficient, too.
How long ago was this? These days, I would expect a LiFePO4 system to be comparably priced (especially if you consider that it should survive considerably more cycles than a lead-acid battery) and smaller and lighter to boot. M
We did this last summer. The 35AH battery we're using cost $64 at the time. I probably ended up spending more per cycle, but I'm guessing my out-of-pocket at the time was lower (and it was kind of a gamble as to how much we'd actually use the rig).
The other thing to consider is that lead batteries don't mind being floated at max capacity for long periods of time. Lithium batteries like to stay closer to 90%, unfortunately most chargers just blindly charge to 100%.
So, I've got an AirMini, and I'd really like a battery solution for it. The thing is, most battery setups I can buy for it are not only big and bulky enough to support larger machines with heated tubes/humidifiers, but they have their own big and bulky power supply. I mean, the whole point of the airmini is to trade extra money for a secondary machine that is easy to throw into your bag.
I was thinking of a project to power the whole thing off of usb-c, which seems kinda silly, but the whole point of buying a tiny secondary cpap is to save bag space, right? and I already have compact USB-C chargers and batteries, and more importantly, I can buy those things in regular stores, should I lose my existing components. Also, the AirMini kind of looks like an apple product itself, so USB-C just seems appropriate.
(Compare that to the giant setup the guy took down the grand canyon.)
being able to use the same power supply and battery for the cpap and everything else would make the whole setup more convenient.
I think USB C pd gives me on the order of 100w and I think the AirMini uses less than 30w. But I have a lot of ee to learn between here and there. My first 'figure out how to power it off USB-C PD' project would be one of my old thinkpad laptops; my X220 uses a 20v power supply, and USB C PD is also 20v, so it seems like it shouldn't be that difficult.
the inline humidifier doesn't work with the full face mask, and I figured out that nasal masks aren't for me shortly after buying my CPAP setup, so we're talking just a few nights of experience on the inline humidifiers.
When I tried the nasal mask, the inline humidifier did seem to add a lot of variable noise, (like it makes the noise really different breathing in vs out) and I personally didn't notice much by way of humidification (but most of the time I don't need humidification on my other unit, either, so I'm probably just less sensitive about that sort of thing.)
I dunno if I would recommend the portables for people who can't live without the humidifier, like I'd rig up one of the inline humidifiers to your regular cpap with humidification disabled and test before buying an airmini, 'cause they are really a very different thing from humidifiers where you add water.
As for the lofta battery, it's bigger than the airmini, and it has what looks like a power brick that is also larger than the airmini. I mean, I can totally see situations where I'd buy and carry it, but at that size, I'm not going to carry it in situations where I'll likely be able to drag the bed closer to an outlet, while I might carry something smaller 'just in case' or 'just for convenience' in those situations.
Outdated info - many CPAP units are happy running from batteries, and there are lots of solutions available.
I use this. You probably don’t even need a dedicated CPAP battery solution these days, but this can be bought with accessories to connect it to many popular models.
I was wondering if one of those options might work well for this situation. They are a bit spendy at $500 for the Powerhouse, but sometimes I have seen them on sale.
I guess I should get a Cigarette Lighter adapter so that in a pinch I could use this 75KWH portable battery I have called a Tesla. :-)
I wish there were some more startups attacking the sleep apnea problem. It is more common in the general population than people realize, and it creates many more health problems. CPAP is only tolerated by fewer than half of patients (I can't stand how uncomfortable wearing the mask at night is while I sleep), and the efficacy of surgery is up in the air. The surgeon in the Bay Area that does jaw reconstructive surgery to open up more space for the airways charges six figures for the procedure, and it is not covered by insurance.
>CPAP is only tolerated by fewer than half of patients
I know several people who are in this boat... but without exception, all the people I personally know who did not tolerate cpap treatment just used one mask, and when that didn't work, they stopped. I think I went through like ten masks from three brands before I really dialed in one that was comfortable for me, and I think that's key to tolerating sleeping with a face-hugger.
>the efficacy of surgery is up in the air. The surgeon in the Bay Area that does jaw reconstructive surgery to open up more space for the airways charges six figures for the procedure, and it is not covered by insurance.
I know two people who got the less invasive version of the surgery where they hack out parts of the soft pallet or something, which is dramatically cheaper (and usually covered) - and they both rave about it, a way better ratio than the CPAP, but when I asked my doctor about it, he pointed out that it tended to work well at first, but the fleshy bits that are cut away tended to grow back. I didn't really research too much further... I mean, really, going under the knife every five years doesn't sound that unreasonable, but I dunno if that's how it works.
I wonder if actually had any experience similar to mine: in short, I had no problem in using the CPAP but after a couple of years I started suspecting it was decreasing the quality of my sleep.
I suffer of a- I think- mild-to-severe sleep apnoea; it was measured once and has been witnessed by anybody having the misfortune of sleeping in the same room with me. There have been periods of time when I used to wake up quite often at night with my heart racing and completely dizzy because of lack of air.
Finally, scared by the horror stories about sleep apnoea, and despite the fact that I was lacking any obvious symptoms of daytime drowsiness, I decided to buy a CPAP machine (Philips Respironics). Had little trouble in adjusting to the mask- didn't even need a humidifier- and after a while I found the bedtime routine quite normal- except for the annoying aesthetical issue of sleeping attached to what looks like a life-support machine.
I've used it regularly maybe for a couple of years. I can't say I witnessed any improvement in my daytime wakefulness or in anything else, possibly the opposite: I was feeling confused and found it difficult to concentrate, often forgetting mid-sentence what I was about to say. In the end I started noticing that I was waking up in the morning strangely lightheaded, possibly hyperventilated. Some people started asking me if I was sleeping at all at night.
In the end I gave up using it, and found no noticeable difference. Actually my sleep apnoea has decreased since then, and at least the major awakenings due to lack of breath have almost disappeared.
Yes, when I was on CPAP, I also felt like I slept much worse with it on, despite the machine showing an AHI < 2.0 every night. One doctor suggested it was psychosomatic and that I am effectively cured of my apnea with the CPAP on. To this day, I continue to feel much more well-rested without the CPAP even though I _may_ have more apneas.
There's at least two companies I was following hoping for some breakthrough treatment, both focusing on hypoglossal nerve stimulation- basically a pacemaker to stimulate the nerves that keep the airways open. One is ImThera and the other one is called Inspire. Not entirely sure of the costs and the results though.
There are also apneas that don't necessarily respond to CPAP/BiPAP treatment. I've been told that I have central sleep apnea -- no effort to breath for up to 30s at a time -- but BiPAP treatment only made a marginal improvement in number/duration of apneas, and was discontinued as it was aggravating other conditions (skin disorder).
I'm currently halfway through the process of getting both Surgically Assisted Rapid Palatal Expansion (SARPE), which I completed 6 months ago, and Maxillomandibular Advancement (MMA) which is happening in October. I'm in my early 30s. I never tolerated the mask well and couldn't fathom being strapped to it for the rest of my natural life.
After reviewing the literature, it quickly became clear that soft tissue surgery was a poor option - surgical success rates are often less than 50%, and surgical cures are almost non-existent. At best you'd trade a lot of pain for a temporary, modest reduction in AHI.
MMA, however, looked very different - in the hands of a skilled surgeon, surgical success rates are >90% and reduction of AHI to <5 is possible, though not guaranteed. A relevant paragraph:
"Staged surgery protocols have been developed to address multilevel airway abnormalities that contribute to OSA. Generally, procedures that carry less severe risks and potential complications are performed initially. The Stanford group protocol reports a staged surgical success rate of 75 % in patients with mild-to-moderate OSA and 40 % in patients with severe OSA in phase I (palatal surgery alone or in combination with GA) to 95 % in phase II or facial skeletal surgery [53]. In some cases when soft tissue abnormalities are not considered to play a significant role, maxillomandibular advancement can be considered as the initial therapeutic option [45]."
Among leading surgeons the view these days is that MMA is the gold standard and there is no reason to do soft tissue surgery first unless your physiology specifically warrants it. MMA does, however, require a skilled surgeon - in the hands of an inexperienced one you'll see much lower success rates and more complications. I did a ton of research before picking the surgeon I've been working with.
Dr. Kasey Li is probably the surgeon you're thinking of. I'm Canadian but paid to have a consult with him to make sure I was on the right path. My understanding is that many insurers will cover the surgery now, although in my case I'm having it done in Toronto by an excellent surgeon. Between the two surgeries and orthodontics it will come out to about $20k over two years. In Canada the hospital stay and most of the surgeries are covered by provincial insurance, so about 3/4 of that cost is actually for braces + expansion device for SARPE.
It's a long and sometimes difficult process, but my own personal calculus lead me to believe it was the best available option given the circumstances. If all goes well I should come out the other end with minimal or no sleep apnea, and as a bonus straighter teeth too :-D
There is some really interesting work being done on implantable hypoglossal nerve stimulation devices (https://www.inspiresleep.com/) but in my estimation the jury is still out on the long-term prospects of that modality.
I've done this for years. My CPAP runs on 12VDC so it works directly from 12v in my RV (recharged by solar panels) or from a portable 12v Lithium battery pack that gets me through about two nights without recharging. No inverter needed, and I don't use the humidifier on battery power.
Unfortunately I just got a new CPAP that uses 25 VDC, so I'll have to build or buy a DC-DC boost converter for it. Slightly annoying, but not a big problem.
Somewhat off topic, but this post seems to have a bunch of apnea experts in it, so here goes: what are the long term effects of relying on CPAP? As I understand it, the airway partially closes because muscles relax in your sleep. Doesn't the positive pressure at night weaken those muscles?
Tangent - Has anyone tried the mandibular extension devices? Worried about long term impacts on jaw...but still tempted vs having this machine for rest of life
https://ww2.cpapaustralia.com.au/blog/cpap-batteries
If you want more endurance or just want to DIY:
Big LiFePO4s: https://www.bioennopower.com/collections/lifepo4-batteries-f...
Portable: https://youtu.be/SJGKuriGRok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erS3b22FgmU
http://www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2016/March/Battery-Pack+... http://www.ebikeschool.com/how-to-build-a-diy-electric-bicyc...