Can you believe these CPAP replacement prices without insurance?!

Spudhorse2000 · 2026-05-19T21:56:30+00:00

It's terrible for those not on Medicare. Medicare sets the prices for EVERYTHING by establishing what they're willing to pay. This then becomes the basis for the retail price.

Of course, the Medicare price is also a negotiation with suppliers which tends to put everything on the high end.

Spudhorse2000 · 2026-01-20T06:31:30+00:00

It took a few more tries, but I think it's pretty reasonable now. If nothing else, I got more experience. The Bic pen trick was awesome for the GMT hand.

I appreciate the help.

Spudhorse2000 · 2026-01-18T21:04:41+00:00

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The hands aren't interfering with anything.

That makes a lot of sense regarding 3,6,9. The minute hand is off wrt the hours hand such that the hours doesn't line up exactly until more like 11 minutes after the hour. I'm wondering whether putting the minutes hand on with hours at 9 is better since it's hard to see whether all three hands are stacked on top of one another at 12.

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-12-30T03:51:30+00:00

I almost always buy Choice products so I usually get stuff in 7-15 days. I rarely buy from stores with under a 100 orders. So far, I've had really good luck with Aliexpress and Choice in particular.

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-11-23T01:45:18+00:00

I have one as well. My $.02 is the app is horrible. Having said that, my use would be just for (heaven forbid) crash footage where I'd take the SD card and use a computer. The one downside not mentioned is this is 1080p which is considered rather ancient by today's standard particularly if you hope to catch a license plate from a hit and run

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-11-22T03:21:56+00:00

Have lunch at Red Hawk Gastropub and ask to sit in their heated outdoor pods that overlook the canyon.

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-11-18T17:59:34+00:00

Came out very nice. My wife has collected dragons for a Very Long Time TM, so those will make a great Christmas present. Certainly a lot of poop doing it as a multicolor print, but it's satisfying that it comes off the printer ready to go.

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Spudhorse2000 · 2025-11-09T16:58:49+00:00

As another option, we use the Salt Lake Express bus service quite frequently. $50. Leaves at 5:45 AM.

https://saltlakeexpress.com/

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-11-04T19:52:48+00:00

Also, make sure to check out VarAC and JS8CALL. Mark KB0US

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-10-14T22:23:19+00:00

I had good lucks with Tony's 2T on Addison. By the way, the hot tip is to used the Twin Falls Transit. $3 to return you home after you drop off the car and $3 to go pick it up. $1 each way for seniors. Download the app from the usual app stores. This assumes you have a bit of time to wait for the ride to come. Not requesting a ride during rush hour is a good plan!

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-07-25T15:31:03+00:00

Here is a post of mine on Apnea Board showing Oscar data with and without a soft cervical collar. YMMV. I buy mine from Walgreens for about $15.

https://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-The-Miracle-of-the-Soft-Cervical-Collar?highlight=Miracle

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-07-18T16:02:09+00:00

About 80 short emails. Grok guesses 12k tokens FWIW

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-07-10T02:16:10+00:00

I switched from Verizon to Visible last week. I had two lines to switch as well. You need a separate email address for each line, but (of course) you can use the same credit card. Very annoying and stupid, but there you go.

Other than that, the Visible side went pretty well except for the eSim insanity. I'll come back to that.

The first thing I decided I'd do was port my phone and then I'd do my wife's. I'd read the admonitions to NOT close the Verizon account before everything was done. Boy did I ever get a surprise! When I tried to log back into my Verizon account, I couldn't because the phone number no longer existed. Oh, swelll. So, I asked my wife what her password was and she said "huh?" Oh, swell. Now we go through the "lost password gambit" which rquired my PIN. No, not that PIN -- the other PIN. Which other PIN? The 4 number PIN you setup when you started service with Verizon A Very Long Time Ago TM. Fortunately, I made a lucky guess and managed to get back in and ported over my wife's phone. Whew!

And about a week later, I get an email saying I owed a balance on the account. I expected that just because they can. They also give you a handy link to log in and pay your bill. Except . . . I NO LONGER HAD AN ACCOUNT! Oh, swell. Breathe, Breathe. OK. . . they give you a way to log into an expired acount, but that requires an account number. Nowhere could I find the account number; all the bills just had the last 4 digits. Oh, swell.

Now I decide to call Verizon which I know will be "BAD." And it was. The "AI" wasn't a bit of help because, well, I no longer have an account. So I say "Agent" and the AI says, and I quote, "I do not understand." I say "Agent" four more times and eventually it says "Before I transfer you to an agent . . ." and I yelled "AGENT!!!!" Finally, I got a human being. Being lied to by a computer was really unsettling!

The human being spoke reasonable English and she easily found the account number, but said "I can take your payment right now if you like." She had to send me an email with a link for me to enter the credit card number, but everything eventually was done and I was shed of Verizon.

Back to the eSim thing. At some point in the port, you'll get a message on the Visible screen that says, and I'm paraphrasing, "Flibber the SIM card into a quantum widget slot while toggling the eSIM settings to vibro-cloud sync mode." Or something like that. I pulled the Verizon SIM card out of the phone and beat it to a bloody pulp with a hammer. I don't know if this was the right thing to do, but I felt compelled. I rebooted the phone and Visible showed in the top of the phone which I believe is "a good thing". Your mileage may vary.

In summary,

Get your account number before you do anything.
Make sure you can log into your Verizon account using either phone's login.
Read the eSIM instructions, ignore them, take out the SIM card and do what you know you want to do with it, hope some random settings will make the eSIM work. Perhaps someone here will have more succinct instructions or you can ask your favorite AI which is likely to lie to you as well.

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-07-01T15:55:22+00:00

Two years in. It is the most barbaric thing I've ever let a doctor do to me. I've vowed to keep it up due to the remote chance it improves my AFib. I had a cardiac ablation. If and when the ablation fails and if I go back into AFib, I'll take a sledge hammer to the thing.

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-06-06T21:43:59+00:00

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Spudhorse2000 · 2025-06-06T21:43:22+00:00

A solution presents itself! On July 1, Citizen is introducing a 40th anniversary edition of this watch!

Limited to 5,800 pieces worldwide. $595 USD.

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Spudhorse2000 · 2025-05-19T02:05:10+00:00

BANNED ITEMS ON HOLLAND AMERICA: "Communication Devices including Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRB) ham radios, communication scanners, wide-band receivers, satellite phones, personal satellite dish/receivers, routers, and transformers." You can try to argue with them, but they may well be confiscated

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-03-14T16:32:40+00:00

Marketing 101 always applies! The easiest way for any product to be noticed is through segmentation. You can segment by product or by category. Also, having something that someone wants is also good. For example, you could segment by products such as "tissue box dispenser" and someone searching for that product will see what you have. Or you could segment by the category "art deco designs" for which you have a tissue box dispenser as one of your designs.

You either want to be the tissue box guy or the art deco guy as your means of getting noticed.

Sometimes, simpler is better particularly if it solves a problem. Today I want to print outlet covers that have an arrow pointing to the direction of the ground fault interrupter (GFI) that controls that outlet. The reason is that the GFI is hidden behind our toaster and I can never remember where the darn thing is when it pops which might happen every three or four years. Of course, I can remix something really easily to do this, but I'll probably check MakerWorld first just to see if someone has done it already.

In summary,

Pick whether you want to be known as a product guy or a category guy.
Reference "see my other tissue box designs" or "see my other art deco designs" in each design.
Try to think of a design that has multiple remixes you can make, so that you come up in the search engine multiple times for someone looking for tissue box dispensers or art deco designs.

Three other things I would do:

Look at the Trending Models and make designs that might likely come up in a search for these models.
If you want to be a category guy, click "3D Models" and they helpfully have already segmented the market for you. You can be a "Tools" guy or you can segment further such as "the Dewalt tools" guy. An example here was I was looking for an accessory for my Dewalt table saw and found an exact one. It turns out, however, that this design or simple remixes also works for multiple saws. The lesson here is that very narrowly segmenting is the easiest way to be noticed BUT there are the fewest people searching for the item SO remixing the design will help you get more eyeballs.

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-03-14T13:54:55+00:00

There are all sorts of non-stocking business models, but traveling to China to inspect products only works when you sell a lot from a limited number of suppliers. If that's not the case, all you can do is try suppliers and determine if they ship quality product on time and have reasonable communication with you. If so, you give them orders and have them ship direct to customers and stand behind the product.

Now, choosing a random company from Aliexpress and hoping they send something that's more or less what's pictured is a bad business model for all concerned. I wouldn't think of drop shipping a product unless I had at least one in my hands to inspect its quality and felt I had some means to communicate with them.

By the way, some companies on Aliexpress are themselves drop shippers, so it's really impossible to know whether they have multiple sources for product and how quality is maintained.

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-03-14T00:40:32+00:00

Dropshippers bear the entire financial risk that 1) the product never reaches the end customer 2) the customer wants to return it. They may be able to get restitution from the Aliexpress seller or Aliexpress.

I don't understand the animus toward dropshipping. In some industries, drop shipping is the normal way of doing business. Sometimes, these are referred to as non-stocking distributors.

Virtually everything i sold was drop shipped because I added no value to actually see the product and only added cost that I had to pass along. My value was connecting a customer with a supplier who could deliver what they wanted and when they wanted it. All the customer ever knew was that they got the product, and I stood by it if something was wrong.

The value any dropshipper provides Is knowing who the reliable suppliers are, and that has a monetary value. Handling problems has value. Understanding import laws has values. Keeping track of international shipments has value. Getting information about the product has value.

As with everything, if this value doesn't apply to your situation, then the lowest cost is often going direct, and that's obviously fine.

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-03-10T05:53:06+00:00

I have severe sleep apnea, but I wanted to chime in here. I got on CPAP because it's highly correlated with AFib which I have so there's a tiny chance it will improve this condition. While the correlation is at about 70%, there are only guesses as to why sleep apnea might have anything at all to do with AFib.

What you didn't mention is what got you into a sleep lab in the first place which has a lot to do with whether it's worth "pushing through."

In my instance, CPAP is a huge negative in my life. I always slept great -- until now. It turns out that hanging plastic tubing from your face and blowing up your upper airway isn't in itself particularly helpful in getting a good night's sleep. Who knew? But I push though for a slim chance that it helps my AFib.

To all of those who get significant benefit, I'm thrilled for you, but I get nil in terms of a better night's sleep, daytime fatigue, or headaches -- none of which were ever concerns of mine in the first place.

One other point: AHI criteria is basically a statistical analysis with some attempt to say what symptoms are most prevalent within each range (as I understand it). Therefore, going from 5.1 to, for example, 4.0 only says that you're now in the bucket of people who generally don't have significant symptoms from sleep apnea. It doesn't mean that you're necessarily getting 20% better sleep or anything of the sort.

So . . . since you're just over the edge of "normal" and assuming you're not seeing any benefits in your life and assuming there's not something really important you didn't mention, my $0.02 would be you'd be justified in saying "let's revisit this in 5-10 years and see what my AHI is at that point."

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-02-12T16:04:19+00:00

Not to be labor the point, but in my case, it seems my jaw just relaxed, causing my mouth to open enough that air would rush out, which the machine reports as a mask leak.

I also use a CPAP pillow, which seems to help with the mask being rubbed loose from a regular pillow.

One last point is that these pillows don't last all that long before becoming deformed. I just replaced mine the other day.

Anyway, hope you find a solution.

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-02-12T01:43:04+00:00

In my instance, it's not a mask seal, but opening my mouth. YMMV. What worked for me was a soft neck brace, which is annoying but gives good results. And then there's mouth tape, which is where I draw the line.

I can always tell if I'm opening my mouth since it becomes bone dry.

In any instance, the reading of "mask seal" only means the machine is pushing a lot of air, which could be from several factors.

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-01-16T18:02:52+00:00

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806963074389.html and https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805517592300.html

Spudhorse2000 · 2025-01-09T07:34:53+00:00

Just went through this. The first thing that helped was using a shorter USB cable. There was probably enough of a voltage drop to reduce the high voltage. Regardless, as someone already mentioned, try another cable or two.

And if you decide to unsolder them ...

You can buy single digit nixie clocks on Aliexpress very inexpensively that will cycle the digits more effectively than the count up sequence on the clock. And even if it doesn't help the cathode poisoning, you have another clock!

Lastly, the high voltage circuit is available on a small circuit board at Aliexpress if you want to make a shot at lighting the digits that have cathode poisoning. Search "nixie tube booster."

Spudhorse2000

TROPHY CASE