Oxygen Concentrator Plugging

[Raggles]

Need to know if "you all" plug your oxygen concentrators directly to a wall plug or do you plug it into a surge protector? It was suggested that the damage to my concentrator was due to it not being plugged directly into the wall plug. Any thoughts?
Raggles

[Speedslug]

Kind of 'iffy' on the -need- to NOT USE a surge protector on an oxygen concentrator.


As an electronics technician in the Navy for 17 years I know of no reason that a working surge protector would damage anything plugged into it.

They have an air compressor which works pretty hard and they have electronic "brains" that monitor levels and purity.

I don't remember seeing surge protectors in any location where they are use for medical purposes.

But it is always a good idea to put a surge protector between the power plant and your own equipment because they are cheaper than repairing the electronics.



My thoughts are that who ever said that either has no electrical training / knowledge or they are trying to get a "boat payment" out of your wallet.

Or Both.





Surge protectors act like fuses.

If lightening strikes your power line the surge protector will die first.

The higher quality ones can be reset from a surge like a circuit breaker.


A condition called a power sag can ruin a compressor motor and those can only be protected from by using an Uninterruptable Power Supply also know as an UPS ( and they all come with surge protection built in as well these days).

[De Anza Art Glass Club]

I see two issues:
1) You asked whether the oxygen concentrator should be plugged directly into the wall, and
2) you asked whether the oxygen concentrator should be plugged into a surge protector.

1) The issue here is that some manuals specify that applicances should not be used with extension cords and this might be interpreted to include power strips with surge protectors that have a long cord. This usually applies to appliances that can draw high currents. However, I don't think this caution is based on damage to the equipment. Also, the cords used with power strips have larger wires than common household extension cords, so I don't think there would be a problem there.

2) Many oxygen concentrators have surge protection built in. They will trip in the event of an electrical surge and there is a reset button. Also, they are double insulated, so do not have surge suppression.

You didn't specify in this thread which oxygen concentrator you have or what kind of damage there was. I won't comment on the possible lack of electrical training or knowledge, but from the reading of the manuals, most manufacturers include the warnings about "no extension cords" and "do not use any adapters or modify the plug" so that kind of leads a technician to cite that as a generic cause if he or she cannot identify the problem or does not want to explain it to the customer.

But if you are just asking for opinions on whether damage was caused by not plugging the device directly into the wall, I also doubt it, unless the plug or cord have been modified.

[Speedslug]

Aye.

Extension cords that are long and or that have thin wiring can reduce the power going through them so much that the oxygen concentrator will only get say 95 volts instead of the 120 that it is designed to get.

That is the "sag" I was referring to and sags can burn out motors pretty quickly.

Most surge suppressors will have thicker wiring and typically come with cords of less than 10 feet so that they won't cause this kind of "brown out" condition that over heats and kills motors.

House wiring that is really old can cause the same problems but you usually only hear about that from the fire department after they put out the fire that thin or overloaded wiring can cause.

[Eileen]

I never thought of a surge protector. I do unplug my oxycon at the end of my session though.

[Speedslug]

I have to add that the really cheap surge suppressors can have undersized wiring so try to stay away from the cheapest ones because some of them wont even last past their first plug in.

[Raggles]

Thank you all for your responses. Convoluted issue with the concentrator but bottom line the company could not figure out what was causing the issue. The machines circuit breaker triggered about 5 seconds after the machine was turned OFF but ran like a dream while beading. I am receiving a replacement this week as he had never seen anything like it and could not fix it.
The question was posed initially because he thought it might be a major power surge that caused an issue somewhere. It was plugged in directly to the wall plug, as recommended by the manufacturer and the seller.
I was wondering about a surge protector to prevent future issues. I am in the healthcare field and we never plugged the home use concentrators into anything but the wall directly.
It all becomes a moot point as he still has no idea where n the wiring the issue might be. Thank you again.

[De Anza Art Glass Club]

Invacare concentrators have a surge protector built in. I'm not sure about other brands.

A couple of weeks ago I transported an Invacare concentrator to another location. It hadn't been used in about a year. When I turned it on, the control circuitry went on, but the compressor didn't. I had to press the white reset button on the front panel, then it worked properly.

[Speedslug]

The power provided to hospitals and care facilities is often well filtered and conditioned to prevent any fluctuations from getting critical patient care equipment.


Most places have multi colored outlets to show at a glance which power sources are connected to automatically switched power feeds.


Internal circuit breakers tripping after shut off sounds like bad capacitors in the motor control part of the oxycon.

[jae49]

Can you plug an oxygen concentrator into a smart plug without risk of damaging the concentrator?

[Speedslug]

What exactly is a smart plug?

I do know that oxycons will scream bloody murder if the power plug gets pulled out of the wall instead of being properly shut down with the front panel switch.

Since they are medical equipment, any form of power loss that is not that panel switch could mean someone could die from a lack of oxygen.

So I am pretty sure it won't work to have the power shut off at the outlet, smart or otherwise.

Power loss like that won't hurt the machine but it will not stop alarming until it gets shut down "properly".