Help water in my cpap!

My cpap ended up falling off my nightstand and my water went inside. It wasn't on but I immediately tipped it upside down to get the water out! There are water droplets on the inside of my screen! I partially blew it dry with a hair dryer! What do I do! Help!

Get any water out of it you can.

One generic thing to try with wet electronics is rice. Wrap the machine in a pillowcase and seal up the open end. Put the pillowcase and machine in a plastic garbage back or something similar with some uncooked rice. Seal up the garbage bag tightly. The rice may soak up enough water to help. The pillowcase is to keep rice out of the machine. Leave it that way for a day or so. You might luck out.

In theory, you should take it in for service by a "trained technician."

Let this be a warning to everyone to put the machine in a drawer or locate it something where you can't pull it off the table.

Wonderbeastlett wrote:My cpap ended up falling off my nightstand and my water went inside. It wasn't on but I immediately tipped it upside down to get the water out! There are water droplets on the inside of my screen! I partially blew it dry with a hair dryer! What do I do! Help!

You DEFINITELY don't want to plug it in if there is any chance that the circuit board is even slightly wet. If you do, you'll possibly short out the unit. Drying it out with the hair dryer is an excellent idea. The sooner you can get the unit completely dry the better because circuit boards in contact with water corrode in a hurry. I'd keep at it with the hot hair dryer. A combination of heat-and-air induced evaporation is going to be the quickest way to completely dry the device. It really shouldn't take too long with a hot hair dryer, not even an hour.

When the heated moisture rises, it's going to condense on the screen until it fully evaporates, so that should be a good indicator for you on how dry the device is on the inside. Make sure the bottom of the unit gets plenty of hot air. If you act quickly, you may be able to save the device. Hope you're successful. Good luck.

Well it looks like we might just have to get a new one! Thy said the cost fix the machine and to ship will basically equal out to the price of a new one! Of course the warranty is void because of water damage.

On a different note though, I didn't sleep with a cpap for the first time in about 3 weeks! This morning I've been coughing up phlegm and my digestive track has gone back to bathroom runs already! I've been sick twice now and while I was on cpap one thing I noticed is I no longer had to run to the bathroom every 10 secs in the morn! Is this something anyone else has noticed? Big difference is digestive track and bowel movements?

Try the rice thing and plug it back in and let it run all day before you just throw it away.

If you need a new one, buy a ResMed S9 Autoset or PRS1 Auto from our host, cpap.com. After adding mask, hose, etc., you're not really carrying a much larger package.

One weird but useful trick that I've learned from electronic devices that may help.

If you put a damaged screen about 12" away from an older incandescent style lamp (say 40-60W max), it actually dries the screen out over a couple days. Used this to save an Android tablet I owned. I put it on the top shelf in a closet, cleared out anything flammable nearby, closed the door on the closet, and voila, tablet screen was back to normal. I was skeptical as hell reading about this, but it actually worked; I suspect it's probably the same general process as a dehumidifier, just on a much more localized basis.

No idea if that'd work for a CPAP, but it's worth a try before junking it if nothing else works.

Cheers.

Try sleeping semi-upright if you can. Like in a recliner. That should reduce apneas some, and lessen the symptoms you are seeing, until you can replace the machine.

Another reason I like my overhead hose guide.

I think i might purchase a new machine and keep this one to try to fix it. I will see if the lamb thing works. I kept using my hair dryer but it doesn't seem to help so we will see!

I know money is tight since you are self pay but look at the PR S1 machine. They have redesigned the tank so that it really takes a lot to spill the water out of it. Just ask anyone trying to dump the tank without removing the lid. The old M series machines would leak out into the machine if they got turned over but they did right by the PR S1 redesign.
I know these lightweight small..all in one machines are handy for traveling and all. Also relatively inexpensive but the very fact that they are small and lightweight makes it super easy to get over turned.
I don't like routing the hose over head. I have tried it several times including last few nights and I just don't care for it.
I do a lot of tossing and turning in bed and I have yet (knock on wood) pulled my machine off the table or overturned it any any way.

My granddaughter has done the rice thing with her i-pod, worked like a charm (the i-pod went through the wash cycle) . She put the i-pod in a sandwich baggie and filled it with rice, left it for a few days and then tried it out, worked fine. A tip to keep you from pulling your machine off the night stand is to route your hose up over your headboard and anchor it with a eye screw, then tie something to the eye screw and around your hose....it won't go anywhere, just leave enough hose to be comfortable when turning over in bed..