Bilevel Backup Battery

[Zandor435]

I use a resmed aircurve 10 vauto Bilevel.  I want to buy a backup battery for potential power outages and if that works, I might like to use it for camping for 1-2 nights.

There are many options out there and I am wondering what people here have used.

Resmed Batteries have mixed reviews and are costly. Most of these seem to only last 8ish hours if you don't use comfort settings.  I also can't quite tell the difference b/t some of these.  
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I also read one user who used a non medical battery that he had much more success with.  My understanding is that the medical travel batteries are built to be able to get on a plane with and hence can't be over a certain power threshold of 100W.  The advantage of these "industrial" batteries is that they have much more power (300W) and hence can keep you charged for closer to 2-3 days.
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I am close to purchasing one of these that has a good return policy and just testing it out myself.  But I would appreciate any comments from those of you that have used batteries.  

Thanks in advance for any comments.

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[sheepless]

just saw an option that might not be what you're looking for Zandor because it's airplane sized but I mention for the outside chance it would suit you and because I'm wondering if it would suit folks like me looking for a relatively easy solution for power outages, travel and camping.

there's been much written about this topic in other threads but they're a bit scattered and it appears there are so many options it's not easy to identify appropriate solutions without going to some effort to become educated about these things. something I'm not up to right now so I'm looking for an easy way.

I recently saw a New Lithium Ion Compact Travel Battery Kit at Supplier #2 (under cpap and bipap accessories) for $249 usd plus an $80 mfgr adapter. advertised as Compact, powerful, lightweight, and portable. said to be airplane sized at 2 pounds so might not be what OP is looking for but also said to be good for 7-26 hours depending on machine type and pressure setting. looks like most users could get 2 nights from one charge. presumably it's rechargeable when AC not available using car or other external battery and also presumably a solar charger which would cost extra.

any of you folks that are knowledgeable about alternate power sources have opinions about this as an easy option?

not intending to hijack this thread. if not on topic, moderators feel free to move or invite me to repost. thanks.

[SideSleeper]

Most of the smaller batteries won't keep a bi-pap going all night as I understand. Res Med machines use more power since the 24 volt power has to be converted to 12 volt. Most portable batteries won't run a humidifier.

[sheepless]

yep, that's the rub of course. trade-off between duration and portability. still, description claims (estimates) 11 hours with bipap pressure ipap 20 epap 16, 17 hrs at 12/8 (for example) so presumably should get one night anyway. might need to be able to recharge daily.

[Zandor435]

Thank you guys for the comments.  I think I am going to purchase one of the less portable models and simply do some in home testing.  Thanks for the thoughts.

[OMyMyOHellYes]

You are going to need a Resmed 12-24 volt converter, I think (their machines will check and see where the power is coming from and if it's not from one of their converters, it will balk and not run - Resmed puts a tiny current or resistance value against one of the plug pins so it can be tricked ... if specifically for a Resmed unit, the manufacturer may have done so.) If you expect to do it yourself, it will require a lot of electronics experience/knowledge, tools, and materials. I think I could do it (others here reverse engineered the methodology) but to me, buying the Resmed DC power brick for $100 seemed a better deal).

Another Viable option would be to buy a Resmed 12-24 DC-DC volt adapter (you don't lose much power with the converter - where you lose a lot of power is trying to run a DC-AC inverter) and get something like a 35 AH 12 V Sealed Lead Acid/Absorbed Glass Mat battery - they're bulky and weigh about 25 lbs, but they would probably get you through multiple nights at home....  for air travel, you could probably get a much smaller 7.5-10 AH (or smaller, depending on the FAA regs) for in air use) and use the same converter.  Charging and auto switch over may become a question that needs to be answered then.  A Battery Tender by Deltran (smart charger) is a pretty standard recommendation.  That is what I did for several years - left the battery on the charger and then if I lost power, would just get up, unplug from  AC mains and go direct to battery for the rest of the night.

One thing to do is go to https://www.resmed.com/us/dam/documents/...lo_eng.pdf - get Resmed's battery guide and see if it will help you understand how much current capacity you will need for your model of machine, at your pressures, and humidification configuration.  That will help you understand how big a battery you need for a night or how many nights a battery with a given capacity will give you.  In my experience, their numbers are conservative....

OMMOHY

PS - I got a chuckle - the link - if you just read it comes over as "resmed.com US dam documents ......."

[Fats Drywaller]

For the benefit of people encountering this thread in the future (and this is one of, I think, about seven dozen on this subject on AB so far), here's a cross-reference to a related thread that I started in the Other Product Reviews forum:

Gissaral GIS09B-AP3 lithium-ion battery pack (power bank)

The executive summary is that it is now, with the available consumer-grade products, quite feasible and easy and relatively inexpensive to do this stuff with Li-ion battery packs, meaning small, lightweight ones that don't require a motor vehicle to carry around.  They also work great for one night's use of the machine at home, in the case of a power outrage, oops I mean outage.  With the higher-capacity products, in the 150 to 200 watt-hour range, you can get two or three nights instead of one, before recharging.  However, that's always without the use of any heater (humidifier or hose)!  Anyone who needs more than that should of course not use the lightweight Li-ion packs but should go for the big guns instead.

The most important first thing for any CPAP user who is just starting out with Li-ion packs is that unless you have money to burn, it's probably not a good idea to buy one of the (in my opinion) unreasonably expensive special-purpose "solutions" that are sold for CPAP use, and especially not the products from Resmed and Philips.  That warning even extends down to the Battery Power Solutions "Freedom" and the similar Medistrom and Bixpower, because you can do it yourself for even less money.  Or, what's even better if you can afford it, you can do it yourself for the same amount of money but get about twice the battery capacity of the 97-watt-hour packaged CPAP "solutions".

But there are a few gremins lurking along the DIY route.