Any CPAP sailors out there?

[tjr818]

I will be taking a dear friend for a "cruise" of about three days. I went camping with him several years ago and his snoring nearly ruined my vacation. Since then he has been diagnosed with sleep apnea (after that trip I could have told him that). He says that he now uses a CPAP machine which runs on 110 AC - ALL night! I am quite sure that would drain the house battery on Slainte, our CD27. Are there any other CPAP users out there? What do you do?

[Klem]

When I worked on schooners in Maine, we would occasionally have people who came aboard with a cpap. We would put a small inverter in their cabin of about 200W just for the trip. I don't know how much power they actually drew but it almost always worked. We did have at least one machine that needed much more power and we had to run off a larger inverter.

I would ask your friend what the spec on the unit says about power consumption then figure out how many Ah that would be over the course of 10 hours. If that is more than 30% of your rated bank, I would be concerned. Keep in mind that if you use an inverter, they are not 100% efficient and you may well need a true sign wave type.

[Russell]

I have known several full time cruisers who use those sleep apnea machines off of an inverter. But of course full time cruising boats tend to have large house banks, and cruisers who require these machines would have their banks setup to allow for this extra load.

Do the math and figure out the dent it would put on the Ah of your existing bank (figuring in your existing loads as well). If it cant handle it ask if your friend is willing to pitch in to help you upgrade your house bank to handle his machine, he gets a cruise and you get a beefed up house bank, seems fair to me.

Alternatively he could buy himself a "Powerpack", one of those portable batteries with built in inverters, basicly a self contained house bank. That way he does not kill your house bank and he now will own a setup that allows him to go camping and such. But he would have to find a way to charge it or buy one big enough to run his machine for 3 nights.

[Paul D.]

Perhaps this post may offer some ideas.

http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t8457 ... upply.html

[TerryO]

I have used a CPAP for years on the sailboat. I purchased a 12v adaptor to run the Respironics CPAP machine. I have a battery monitor on the boat and the machine draws about .3 A to .9 A depending on when it ramps up when you take a breath. So less than 10 ah for a night. I used to carry a small gel cell battery on my old sailboat just for the CPAP but have two Grp 27 batteries on my CD25D so I don't bother anymore. I am not able to run the humidifier on the 12v adaptor but it is OK since the humidity is usually higher on the water. I do have an inverter but it is more efficient to just use the 12v adaptor. Hope this helps.

Terry