Other Uses For CPAP Machines!

Me and a few buddies went out and rented a two bed fishing cabin earlier in the week which left one of us in the predicament of having to sleep on an air mattress, big ole queen size one at that. We were all taking turns with a bicycle type pump airing it up as no one had any kind of air portable air compressor or anything and I all of the sudden got the crazy idea of using my cpap machine instead. I figured it's basically just a portable air compressor anyhow right? So why not give it a shot? I set my Aircurve VAuto to "run maskfit" mode, put the end of its hose over the fitting on the mattress, started filling, and in no time I had it dang near fully aired up. I was a little leery at the end, and didn't want to screw up my machine trying to fully pressurize the mattress so I unplugged it and let my buddy go ahead and do the final part by mouth,LOL! It didn't effect my machine at all, as it worked fine that night and ever since afterwards! Who would have ever thought?

Any air mattress I have seen has a much smaller valve than the size of the hose. How did you make the hose fit on the smaller valve?

I just stuck the hose on top of it, pressed it against the mattress, and sealed it with my hands!

Door Stop for people not willing to use it for XPAP treatment! Jim

the cpap at .3 psi has no pressure to pressurize your mattress, just like with my balloon test, it will fill empty space but will not budge past the point of actually expanding the balloon. cpap seems like pressure in your mouth but it really isn't. the cpap is low pressure, high volume. the high volume makes it feel like high pressure,

Tho cpap is a positive pressure compared to atmospheric room pressure and as used in this example can help fill a volume. Certainly the remainder of the pressure would have to happen by hand or some other way. They do make little hand held kind of fan for doing just this - inflating an air mattress. They look kinda like a hair dryer which is yet another option as long as you can turn off the heat.

Yeah I have a battery operated inflator (takes D batteries) specially made for filling air mattresses and such but didn't bring it with me nor did I realize I would need it, using my cpap machine was just a spur of the moment idea as nothing else was available at the time so I thought I try MacGyvering it in an attempt to to save us some time and energy!

HDCowboy wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 13, 2020 9:33 am

Yeah I have a battery operated inflator (takes D batteries) specially made for filling air mattresses and such but didn't bring it with me nor did I realize I would need it, using my cpap machine was just a spur of the moment idea as nothing else was available at the time so I thought I try MacGyvering it and try to save us some time and energy!

Would have been interesting if you had forgot your CPAP and not your battery operated inflator.

Would have loved to see you MacGyver that into a CPAP device.

Dog Slobber wrote:

Would have been interesting if you had forgot your CPAP and not your battery operated inflator.

Would have loved to see you MacGyver that into a CPAP device.

I have to admit I'm pretty handy when it comes to redneck engineering but I aint dang near near no where that good!

HDCowboy wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:51 am

I figured it's basically just a portable air compressor anyhow right?

While technically correct that it's a type of compressor, it's an entirely different type of compressor.

What most people (Unless they're jet turbine technicians) think of when they think "compressor" is a positive displacement piston type device, where a piston pushes air out through a check valve.

Resmed uses a double stage centrifugal impeller design that is, in essence, a very fancy fan. it's great for high volume (as much as 180 liters per minute at 4cmh20 pressure. (or 131 at 20cmh2o), but that's a VERY low pressure.

Respironics I think, has a higher mass, slower response, single stage impeller.