I was also diagnosed with sleep apnea. How do you add moisture to the air flow? If you don't have a humidifier connected to your makeshift cpap machine, does it dry your breathing passages? Congratulations on creating your machine.

Did you ever end up making a functional CPAP? Would you be willing to share info on that build?

You should take the following as a description of what I did. There is NO WAY any medical authority will give something like this their stamp of approval! If you develop something with this info, it's at your own risk. If you injure your vocal cords and develop phlebitis in your leg, don't run crying to me!

I didn't get a humidifier going, and it was a bit noisy, but it worked. I often used it to take naps in the car. The commercial one is considerably nicer, but mine worked.
Look at the fan pressure curve here:
http://www.delta.com.tw/product/cp/dcfans/download/pdf/GFB/GFB40x40x48mm.pdf
Note how the fan curve is flat. :That means that if the flow is reasonable, you will get a fairly constant pressure. You may be able to find one of these for a reasonable price on line these days. I could probably get by on one of these at a slightly elevated voltage or two in series at a low voltage. I need something like 9 cm H2O min. You can test by seeing how deep you can blow bubbles using your fan assembly and a tube sticking into water.

Back then, I couldn't find anything with quite that much zip, so I assembled several assemblies (3, I think) in a row, with paper rings to link them together. I harvested them from server fan units similar to eBay item 250958786046 aka Dell PowerEdge 1950 Dual Cooling Case Fan Assembly MC545 TC146. The paper rings were the same diameter as the inner diameter of the housing. I put this in a big plastic pipe with a carpet to absorb noise, with a barrier in the middle so air had to go through the fan to get from one end of the pipe to the other. Then I just hooked on a long hose maybe 1.2 inches in diameter, which plugged into a box and another hose that went to the CPAP mask. The box acted as a muffler. I put a piece of dust mask material over the entrance to the pipe. This can be a real advantage if you have allergies.

I should point out that this is NOT something you could get the FDA to approve as a medical device. While the fans themselves are probably adequately rated for fire resistance, the other components are not. So you can imagine it would be pretty nasty if, say, the carpet or PVC ever caught fire. The carpet could get dirty, too. Also, at one point I left this thing in the garage and mice decided to live in it for a while! Haven't used it for breathing air supply since.

In any case, it's a good idea to get a sleep study, as a simple CPAP might not be what you need.

Also, having a humidifier built in can be very nice.

I tried adapting a mask from a dust respirator, but I couldn' t get anything that fit to my satisfaction.

As an aside, one might consider, at least if one is a scofflaw, use of one of these fans for a very low budget remote air supply for a respirator. Especially if you have a beard which prevents a good seal with a mask, as, hypothetically, enough pressure can be maintained to make sure all leaks are out FROM the mask instead of into it.

How did you do that! It sounds amazing. PLEASE! make an instructable!

Any chance you've got photos from your builds of either or both of those projects? If so, why not put them together into an Instructable. The interface is surprisingly simple to use. If all you've got are the finished ones, you could put together a slideshow or video.

...did ya ever get that Orc detector to work?

*rolls eyes* Not "high elf detector" :-) rather Extremely Low Frequency radiation detection. You know, the same kind that helps a "touch lamp" operate?

Awwwwww. Don't I get to make a bad joke every day or two? (Have a good one, GH.)

Hmm, Orcs weren't Elves though were they ? They were Sauron's creations. Sorry I ruined your joke (I can be a poor straight man sometimes). Orcs can be seen from afar though, what one would need would be a Hobbit detector. These little guys can sneak right up on you when you are not looking :-)

nope, the first orcs were elves. very mutated elves (my little brother went through a stage where he watched all the movies on loop for an entire summer...)

Ok, well I read the books, many many moons ago (only recently saw the newest movie triad), but that was a good 36 years ago...I am surprised at what I remember of Middle Earth :-)

lol i have read the books also(except the silmarillion or however its spelled...) (non related) "little Women" has got to be the most boring book ever(i read it in the 5th grade only because the second best reader was also and i had to finish quicker and score higher on the test then him :) and of course i did lol ummm my most interesting make would have to be one of the many treestands ive made(one with a roof,walls,and cot lol) but hey, im only 15!

The Silmarillion, ah now there was another book to put you to sleep unless you were a real die hard fan (read fanatic). I have the PB version and it is a real bore in places. The part about Gandalf's beginnings was neat enough though.

Heh. Old Testament vs. New Testament. Dude making free food out of nothing is usually more exciting than genealogy (okay, annoying kids eaten by bears is pretty exciting...). If you think the Sil was boring, just try the 13+ volumes of drafts Chris T bundled up to keep the franchise alive...

I just got to thinking, were you referring to Chris T. Cornelius ?

No, Christopher Tolkien, JRRT's son. He took all of his fathers drafts and unpubplished writings and put them out as "The History of Middle Earth" volumes 1 to 13, along with several other books. A lot of it is really amazing and beautiful poetry, but it's also a frightening demonstration of OCD :-)

Oh ok, thanks.:-)

I had a much smaller book that was THE fastest sleep inducer I have ever had....it was called "Why Psychoanalysts Fail" 2 paragraphs and it was zonk time.... ;-)

I've just added my crib modification I'ble to the Make group. It won't show up in "Recently added" because those are sorted by publication date.

SHOW ME HOW TO MAKE ONE!

Wait, I've seen something like this a while back. That's a pretty crappy video, by the way. You need a friend to hold the camera next time. Really cool idea, though.

My kids (with help of their mother)!

Great. That's the purpose of my "Volumetric Projector from Junk" instructable. My mother didn't help. That's why it's only pretty in the crappy sort of way.

lol you're funny.. i admire your work :) i have always wanted to embark on this project. sadly im 17 and my financial instability have will not support the "product development" process.

17 and wanting to embark onthat project... you and I are two very different 17year olds...

That is great. I guess the dark side is building the Robby robot. I was always fond of the robots Huey Dewey and Louie from Silent Running.

POST AN INSTRUCTABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hahaha imagine all the 13 yearolds who would die trying to drive this thing hahahahahahahahahahah

There you go, feeding the belly and the mind at one shot....good idea :-)

Beautiful craft. Are you at Juniper springs in the picture? Rainbow River?

Thank you, it;s actually the confluence of the Wekiwa and Rock Springs