My unit gets hot and shuts down after 45 minutes?

Most of us assume that the elec­tri­cal out­lets deliv­er enough pow­er. LiveO2 air sep­a­ra­tors draw about 8 Amps which are com­pat­i­ble with both 15 Amp and 20 Amp circuits.

If the elec­tri­cal sys­tem that deliv­ers pow­er to your air sep­a­ra­tor has low pow­er for any rea­son it will pre­vent the air sep­a­ra­tor from work­ing cor­rect­ly — even though there is noth­ing wrong with it. Air sep­a­ra­tors require 120 volts AC. 

Common Problems

• Cir­cuit Over­load­ing — too many devices draw­ing too much pow­er on a build­ing, cir­cuit or branch
• Defec­tive wiring — A wire may have been dam­aged between your device and the cir­cuit board
• Defec­tive breaker
• Low volt­age on the region­al pow­er grid

Low Voltage Symptoms:

• Sys­tem starts nor­mal­ly — Reser­voir may fill slowly
• After run­ning for 5 – 45 min­utes the sys­tem smells hot and feels hot in back or around the low-oxy­gen hose
• Yel­low light may come on after run­ning awhile.
• The air sep­a­ra­tor will prob­a­bly shut-off auto­mat­i­cal­ly. This is a ther­mal self-pro­tec­tion device designed to pre­vent dam­age when the unit over­heats internally
• There will usu­al­ly be a hot smell

If this hap­pens — please con­tact support. 

Our sup­port staff will ask you to:

1. How we diag­nose Low Power:
• Plug in your air-sep­a­ra­tor into a dif­fer­ent pow­er source in a dif­fer­ent build­ing. This will test the oper­a­tion of your air sep­a­ra­tor with a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent pow­er sup­ply. Plug­ging in your air sep­a­ra­tor to an out­let in the same build­ing often fails to diag­nose the issue because elec­tri­cal sys­tem issues often may affect an entire build­ing.
  • If the prob­lem resolves that means the pow­er in the orig­i­nal build­ing is com­pro­mised. Replac­ing your air sep­a­ra­tor will not fix the issue. You will need to con­tact an elec­tri­cian to repair the elec­tri­cal system.
  • If the prob­lem does not resolve, then we will have you return your air sep­a­ra­tor to us for diag­no­sis with our nor­mal sup­port process.
• If this is not pos­si­ble, we may send you a low-pow­er shut off. This unit plugs into the out­let. When the pow­er drops too low, it turns off the pow­er to the air sep­a­ra­tor. This pro­tects your air sep­a­ra­tor from dam­age due to low pow­er. It will not fix the low pow­er prob­lem. You will need to con­tact an electrician.
2. If the prob­lem does not resolve, then we will have you return your air sep­a­ra­tor to us for diag­no­sis with our nor­mal sup­port process.

Low Voltage/Brownout Protection Devices

These pro­tect the devices from dam­age by shut­ting off pow­er com­plete­ly when the volt­age falls too low. They do not repair the pow­er. You will need to mea­sure the pow­er sup­ply volt­age to the device under load to diag­nose and repair.

• Alter­nate Brownout Pro­tec­tor option 1
• Brownout Pro­tec­tor on Ama­zon option 2
• Brownout Pro­tec­tor Option 3

Suspect Regions

• Chica­go seems to have low volt­age more often than oth­er locations. 
• The Philip­pines use 220 volts at 60 Hz. Oth­er coun­tries that use a 220 volt pow­er use 50 Hz. Using a 2:1 step down trans­former reduces the volt­age to 110 volts — which is bor­der­line below the low lim­it of voltage. 

Intel­li­gent — volt­age reg­u­lat­ed trans­form­ers for the Philippines:

• Can­di­date 1 — Volt­age Reg­u­lat­ed Trans­former — US Suppler
• Can­di­date 2 — Volt­age Reg­u­lat­ed Trans­former — Philip­pine Supplier

These devices are NOT suit­able for use with 50 Hz pow­er grids, like in Europe or Asia.