Getting hotel smells out of CPAP

[Sleepster]

I found a small brush and with some rubbing alcohol used sparingly I managed to get all the impeller blades clean. The smell is still there, though, and the innards of the blower seem to be the source.

If I could just get that impeller to come off so I could clean underneath it.

Just to be clearer than before, there's a plastic cover on the side of the blower opposite the impeller. It's held in place by retainers that are part of the cover itself. Remove the cover and you see the metal plate I mentioned before with the three philips head screws. See photo. The metal plate is round and almost as large as the blower housing. Remove the screws and you can lift the metal plate a few millimeters, but it stops when it hits what appears to be a brass flywheel that has a diameter of 16 mm. There's a hole in its center where the impeller shaft comes through and stops just below the surface. There are three blind holes drilled in the flywheel in various places. I'm guessing this was done to balance it.

It looks as though the flywheel is pressed onto the shaft and could be removed with a very tiny pulley remover. Once that's removed the metal plate might slide right off. Anybody else gotten this far?

[diamaunt]

well, on the plus side, the fan in the resmed units is completely encased in plastic, and would have to be cracked open.

you *might* be able to order a new one, theres a discussion going on over on 'that other forum' *cough* about robysue's prs1 that's having sd card problems, and sludge has posted a place that sells replacement pcboards for the prs1 machines.

[Sleepster]

Hmmm ... I wonder if a new board is what this 650P needs?

Anyways, upon closer examination I saw that there was still plenty of crud on the impeller blades so I soaked it in alcohol (keeping the alcohol level at or below the top of the impeller so it wouldn't get into the motor casing). Then some more brushing followed by a blast of compressed air.

And upon some further thought I realized that there is no need to remove that flywheel or cover as there's nothing under there that's in the air stream.

The bad odor is much reduced. I think there's still some outgassing from the plastic.

Now, can I put it back together and not have any parts left over?

It's not like a car where you can just put the left over parts in the gas tank and let them work themselves into place.

[Sleepster]

Well, I got it back together, and to my great surprise it works! Now this was the machine that was starting fail before. It would shut itself off, and then all but one time turn itself back on. I'm letting it run to air it out. It's set on IPAP 12 and EPAP 9, and this is a fixed pressure machine, but when I went in to check on it the display read "EPAP 7.5" or something like that. Shut down a restart fixed it, but really, I guess something on the board is failing.

Either that or it's morphing into a BiPAP Auto. Can they do that?

[diamaunt]

ramp?

[Sleepster]

Yes, as it turns out that is what happened. I had accidentally hit the ramp button.

I wonder if I can turn this into a BiPAP Auto by swapping out the board? That would be awesome.

By the way, the service manual lists a whole bunch of error codes that can only be read using their software and their cable.

I wish I had a way to get my hands on that stuff.

[diamaunt]

Yes, as it turns out that is what happened. I had accidentally hit the ramp button.

I wonder if I can turn this into a BiPAP Auto by swapping out the board? That would be awesome.

By the way, the service manual lists a whole bunch of error codes that can only be read using their software and their cable.

I wish I had a way to get my hands on that stuff.

yeah, the sw and interface would be neat.

I'd be willing to bet you could make it a auto bipap, or probably even an autosv.

Sludge (over there) implied that "system one" was more than just a catchy name, if you get my drift...

what I wonder is if they just load the same sw on all the s9 machines and set something in a 'factory' menu that tells it what machine it is... the VPAP Tx allows for the selection of *all* the machines, so it's possible.

[Sleepster]

sludge has posted a place that sells replacement pcboards for the prs1 machines.

Can you PM the name of that place to me?

[Sleepster]

After running the machine for a few hours yesterday I notice today that finally the smell seems to be gone. The unit works well enough, but not enough to be trusted. Even as a back up unit. I'll just use it for spare parts, or maybe I'll find some spare parts and be able to fix it.

It's been interesting to discover just how well they're made. Basically there's a blower with some plumbing that directs the air in through the filter and out through the hose. All the wires (from the blower, the buttons, and the humidifier) run to one main board. That board houses all the sensors and all the electronics. Every part can easily be removed and swapped out. It's like it was built to be repaired.

I think that all the hardware on all the PRS1's might be the same, and the only difference, like between the lowest end and the highest end of the series, is the instructions written to the chip (that is, the firmware). No wonder PR makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to do firmware updates. Far from encouraging it as other industries do, they seem to make no mention of it.

[archangle]

I think that all the hardware on all the PRS1's might be the same, and the only difference, like between the lowest end and the highest end of the series, is the instructions written to the chip (that is, the firmware).

The Plus and DS150 machines are one hardware design. The Pro, Auto, BiPAP Pro, BiPAP Auto are different hardware. At least they were a few years ago.

The main difference is the presence of the airflow sensor.

I can't say for sure about 60 series, or the higher level bilevel machines like ASV, AVAPS, ST, etc.