Oxygen concentrator alarm troubleshooting

Last night the oxygen concentrator that feeds into my son’s Dreamstation kept alarming. Oddly when I turned the concentrator on this morning it ran fine for the 10 minutes I tested it. The concentrator is a perfecto2 DME rental. I plan to call the DME once they open this morning to make them resolve the issue. I hate that my son had to go without the extra O2 last night so for future reference i wanted to find out how to troubleshoot if the alarm goes off again down the road. I tried unplugging, pushing the white button, checking the filter, and checking the hose and connections for kinks or leaks. Is there anything else that I should have tried to resolve the alarming?

My wife had a similar issue with an Invacare concentrator. It turned out that it had been moved back against the wall and was overheating. It has be 8 inches or so out from the wall. The time it took to overheat seemed to be a function of the room temperature.

colomom wrote: ↑

Mon May 06, 2019 7:35 am

Last night the oxygen concentrator that feeds into my son’s Dreamstation kept alarming. Oddly when I turned the concentrator on this morning it ran fine for the 10 minutes I tested it. The concentrator is a perfecto2 DME rental. I plan to call the DME once they open this morning to make them resolve the issue. I hate that my son had to go without the extra O2 last night so for future reference i wanted to find out how to troubleshoot if the alarm goes off again down the road. I tried unplugging, pushing the white button, checking the filter, and checking the hose and connections for kinks or leaks. Is there anything else that I should have tried to resolve the alarming?

When the perfecto2 alarms, it flashes an error code on an internal board. You can see it by pulling the filter off the back (like you were going to clean it) and then looking into the back.

one red, two greens = high pressure
one red one green or one red three greens = low pressure
one red five green or two reds three greens = defective parts.
two reds four greens or two reds five greens = not operating
two reds one green = low oxygen

It may still be flashing the codes even though it is working now.

A blocked output hose will cause it to alarm, but you said you tried that.

Thanks for the education ClayL and Palerider!
I'll be sure to allow some distance between the concentrator and walls to prevent overheating.
Knowing about the error codes and how to translate them will be incredibly helpful in troubleshooting any possible future alarms.

I didn't see Palerider's post before the DME tech arrived. I was surprised to learn about the error codes, the DME's tech never removed the filter to check for the flashing codes. There weren't any codes flashing after the tech was finished messing with it, but if it alarms again that will be the first thing I look for. The DME tech thought it was likely alarming because of low output. As a starting point the doc prescribed 1 liter of O2, the tech said the concentrators don't do as well with such a low output. He tested it with a meter and found that although it was set at 1 liter the output was a bit less, so he adjusted based on the meter reading. The tech hoped he had fixed the issue but wasn't fully confident. Hopefully it is resolved, but if not and I am awoken again in the middle of the night by a blaring alarm now I have a better starting point to troubleshoot the problem. Thanks again!