Community Forums

flywithcoop · 03-08-2018, 07:20 AM

Has anyone dry camped while using a oxygen concentrator and two sleep machines? I need to run the oxy concentrator plus two sleep machines plus all the other normal MH stuff overnight. My 36LA has 4 house batteries. Not sure if they would be large enough to run everything overnight. We always stay at a campground because of all this oxygen equipment. Would like to dry camp at WalMart etc if it becomes necessary.

Gaff · 03-08-2018, 07:40 AM

If you can get the electrical specs off of all the pieces of equipment you plan to be running one of us could better tell. Also if you get the specs of your batteries/solar, specifically the AH rating and maybe how old they are.

BigSkyBob · 03-08-2018, 07:49 AM

I don't know if it's still a viable option but my wife used liquid oxygen from one of the two liquid tanks I carried in my pickup. These were filled by Lincare everywhere we traveled and was never a problem. No AC or DC power required and each tank would last about a week set at 3LPM. She also had portable liquid tanks that she carried when traveling in the toad. Can't help with the CPAP issue.

Gary.Jones · 03-08-2018, 12:35 PM

We have had several owners at Quartzsite (as well as visitors to my own Anthem) who used CPAP machines ( One was two CPAPs running simultaneously). We have quiet hours imposed by BLM from 10:00 to 6:00. am Those owners always set their AGS to start their genny regardless of quiet hours when their house batteries got down to around 12.0 volts. It is my understanding that both Aspires and Anthems started their generators before 6:00 am. My belief is that with all that equipment running, you will likely need to set the AGS EVERY night and assume that the genny will probably run every night also to avoid taking your batteries below 50% SOC

Gary

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**pasdad1** · 03-08-2018, 02:33 PM

Turn off the heat on the humidifier chamber in the CPAP’s.... the heat option is what uses most of the total power consumed.

flywithcoop · 03-09-2018, 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gary.Jones

We have had several owners at Quartzsite (as well as visitors to my own Anthem) who used CPAP machines ( One was two CPAPs running simultaneously). We have quiet hours imposed by BLM from 10:00 to 6:00. am Those owners always set their AGS to start their genny regardless of quiet hours when their house batteries got down to around 12.0 volts. It is my understanding that both Aspires and Anthems started their generators before 6:00 am. My belief is that with all that equipment running, you will likely need to set the AGS EVERY night and assume that the genny will probably run every night also to avoid taking your batteries below 50% SOC

Gary

.

Thanks Gary. This was the type of info I wanted to know. Good idea to set the Gen auto start. I had not thought of that option and that is what I will do if we dry camp. I haven't set up my auto start due to never needing to use it and just didn't think of using it for this application. Thanks again.

LI-Camper · 03-09-2018, 08:48 AM

We run two C-Paps on two 6 volt batteries. I bought a 12 volt cord for each C-Pap. I installed a 12 volt outlet on both sides of the bed. These outlets are fused and connect directly to the batteries. If you use your inverter, you will change 12 volts to 110 volts and then back to 12 volts which is a waste of energy. Most C-Paps run on 12 volts. Look at the “brick” to see that 110 volts is converted to 12 volts. Turn off the heat/humidifying on the machine when running on battery power. No generator needed at night.

fayrankin · 03-31-2018, 11:31 PM

I thought I had this whipped. Found the 12V power cord for my cpap with the male cigarette lighter plug AND it also had a 12V lighter receptacle with good heavy battery clips.

In my 22ft Born Free the battery compartment is very close to my bed so I envisioned running the socket indoors with a good heavy wire ext and looking forward to some nice dry camping nights.

It's always a mistake to read the instructions but I can't help myself. On the cord for the clip attachment it says that the clips should only be put on a bare battery with no other cables attached? I'm sure this is just a CYA thing protecting against what I can't imagine but as sometimes thinking I know a lot more than I really do (I'm pretty sure I remember this happening once) could get me in trouble. I'm polling the pros here: Would you add a clip cord to your RV batteries to run a low amp load? I plan to use the battery disconnect so I can also use a plug in meter to measure the DC volts.

What say ya'll?

Jkoch · 04-01-2018, 04:57 PM

I use my Champion 3500 gen in the evening and let it run all night. It is super quiet. It runs out of fuel sometime during the night then my coach goes to battery/inverter. I wake up in the morning and refill the gen with gas and run it again during the day. Runs 2 Tv's, refrigerator and CPAP no problem.

Searching_Ut · 04-01-2018, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fayrankin

I thought I had this whipped. Found the 12V power cord for my cpap with the male cigarette lighter plug AND it also had a 12V lighter receptacle with good heavy battery clips.

In my 22ft Born Free the battery compartment is very close to my bed so I envisioned running the socket indoors with a good heavy wire ext and looking forward to some nice dry camping nights.

It's always a mistake to read the instructions but I can't help myself. On the cord for the clip attachment it says that the clips should only be put on a bare battery with no other cables attached? I'm sure this is just a CYA thing protecting against what I can't imagine but as sometimes thinking I know a lot more than I really do (I'm pretty sure I remember this happening once) could get me in trouble. I'm polling the pros here: Would you add a clip cord to your RV batteries to run a low amp load? I plan to use the battery disconnect so I can also use a plug in meter to measure the DC volts.

What say ya'll?

I wouldn’t personally have any issues doing what you describe assuming of course I could get a good connection that I wasn’t afraid would pop off. That said, with my last rig I simply ran fused wiring to a cigarette lighter type plug that I installed near the bed and used a cigarette lighter plug adapter cable I picked up on-line for my CPAP. On my current rig I run either a whole house inverter all night or a smaller inverter that just runs a couple plugs in the bedroom. Which inverter I use depends mostly on whether or not I have other stuff I choose to leave on all night.