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CPAP while traveling, and how to feed them.

There have been many questions about battery backup and camping issues in my communities. I have become almost expert out of desperation. Here is what I have learned.

Note: I am not a medical technician, nor am I well versed in the magic of electronics. Use all this as suggestions of what kinds of questions you should be asking.



No solution is perfect. Examine what it is you need. This will have a lot to do with what you need medically in terms of your machine. Just because they issued you a particular machine, this does not mean that is the best one for you either medically or to fit your life style. My life includes lots of travel, both in airplanes and in an RV.



Travel Machines

My machine of choice is the ResMed Mini. Insurance would not provide one for me. Even though it was less expensive than the one they wanted to foist on me. A friend who knows me well, and is a high end nurse. Oh yeah both her and her partner are CPAP users.
I would love to test drive other machines, but I am not that rich.  These little suckers are expensive.
 Upside:  it is auto adjusting. And really small. And very light.
Downside:  they have engineered the unit and supplies to not work with other equipment. Every thing has a special plug or fitting that is only available thru them. And they are ridiculously expensive. The fact that they have increased in price 50% in the last 2 years is telling.

There is a wonderful battery that works with it.
Upside: it is FFA approved so will go on an airplane. And it has power ports for your cell phone. There is a car power plug that works well, but is expensive.
Downside:  it is a heavy battery. And very expensive, surprise surprise. There is a solar panel to go with it, but it is also heavy and expensive.
It is essential to unplug the CPAP when not in use.  They all have Bluetooth, mostly not able to be turned off.  It will suck your battery dry over the course of the day. 
I have also found that it will have a tantrum about charging occasionally. Draining it all the way down, then plugging into the wall for a complete recharge seems to fix the problem. 

Dedicated Power Stations
First off, the jump start units and power packs are not the same thing. The first will give a big blast of power once or twice.  The second will give you less power over a longer period of time.  You want the second thing. 
These range from really expensive, to rather cheap. They also range from works great to finding out at 3am that you don't have enough power. Some have solar available. Some charge quickly some charge slower. Ask lots of questions. 
Jackery is the top brand at the moment.  This does not mean that it is the best, but use it and their spec sheet as a guideline. One friend of mine swears by hers. Another friend swears at hers.
Look at where you are going to get your power from.  A unit that has a full solar set up may be a good investment or it could be one more thing to spend money on.  If you are going to use your car as a charger, you might want to look at having an auxiliary battery installed. Or get a cheap amp meter to make sure you can start the car in the morning. (It does raise the question of how is this going to affect those guys that have all electric vehicles.)
When evaluating, have your CPAP specs in front of you. You will need amps, and volts, and use time.  Use a company that has knowledgeable staff to talk to. And if you use their technical advice, it is really bad form to then go and buy it for a few dollars less from the big online store. (Hundreds of dollars different, yeah go with the money.)


Ryobi
Home Depot carries Ryobi products, and this is the brand I  use for all of my battery powered tools. This is the unit that has a plug, and USB ports.  I use it with my 4ah battery.  It gets me all the way thru the night. I  have done it with the smaller 2ah, but that must be absolutely charged up and I must not be snorgy which seems to draw more power. I use this in combination with a car charger. 
Upside: it works and is very reliable. And these battery packs are the same ones I use for lots of other stuff.  Since I have batteries for lots of other tools around, I can have several on hand for those times I am not going to be running the vehicle or have wall plug access for several days.
Downside: The charger and the batteries are sold separately, and it starts to get expensive. But since I have them in house anyway, it really doesn't add much to the cost of things. 



A loose battery
As I said, I am not an expert in any of this, but I am a bit squoogie about batteries, and clamps, and loose wires in my living space. So I just don't do this. My SIL does this, and I have friends that do this. and they are all fine with this. But I just don't do this. 

Notes on blogging: for some reason this stupid program has decided that some of the text should have white background. I have no idea why it is doing this. It is some where in the HTML, and I haven't figured out why it is doing this.





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