81–90 of 149 posts
Did he say there’s no differential? Solid read axle? That could be hard to turn on non dirt surfaces?
Most of the comments have criticized the price point for what you are getting; however, I would say this looks like a great quality of life tool for disabled individuals. If you are wheelchair bound, there are a number of terrains that a traditional wheelchair will not operate on. They even point this out with their rig on beach sand. There are designs that handle sandy terrain [1], but they would not work well on ot…
His name is Zach...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably just fine. It seems they intend this mostly for use on soft surfaces, where the lack of a differential isn't really an issue, even on large vehicles, because the surface itself is compliant enough to make up for the lack of differential action. But even on a hard surface it might work just fine, because the turning radius looks pretty shallow. The advantage is that a solid axle is simple, cheap, reliable, an…
I mostly agree about the advantages, but two motors would be arguably simpler from a mechanical standpoint.
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Version 1.0 will always be a functional proof-of-concept. They have the basic platform, now they can start iterating.
If they've gotten this far, they've already been iterating. In fact he says so at the beginning. "A year ago I welded two bicycles together..." Having built two recumbent vehicles (a bike and a trike) I can say that the options for a rear wheel drive are either: - Single wheel drive - Dual wheel drive with freewheeling action - The inside wheel is driven in turns - A differential - The outside wheel is driven in turn…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably just fine. It seems they intend this mostly for use on soft surfaces, where the lack of a differential isn't really an issue, even on large vehicles, because the surface itself is compliant enough to make up for the lack of differential action. But even on a hard surface it might work just fine, because the turning radius looks pretty shallow. The advantage is that a solid axle is simple, cheap, reliable, an…
I mostly agree about the advantages, but two motors would be arguably simpler from a mechanical standpoint.
One trick with regular vehicles to better handle sand is to lower the tire pressure. I'm curious how well you could do on sand with bike tires using lower pressure?
I think the biggest impact of this is the price. There are other similar products out there (Bowhead and Outrider come to mind), but those are really expensive. In a world where mobility product prices are through the roof (my power wheelchair costs north of $50k), selling something like this for under $5k is quite incredible.
Holy mother, I had no ideas they could be so expensive!
Out of curiosity (and unfortunately because I might need one myself before too long :(, I just had a quick Google here in the UK, and I can't find any more expensive than $3k. I'm not sure if you meant "normal" electric-powered wheelchair, or something else?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they've gotten this far, they've already been iterating. In fact he says so at the beginning. "A year ago I welded two bicycles together..." Having built two recumbent vehicles (a bike and a trike) I can say that the options for a rear wheel drive are either: - Single wheel drive - Dual wheel drive with freewheeling action - The inside wheel is driven in turns - A differential - The outside wheel is driven in turn…
Dual wheel drive with freewheels needs a way to block the freewheel to be able to reverse.
Can anyone point me in a good direction to start making something like this myself? I've dabbled with arduinos but never really large electric motors and battery packs. I think it would be a lot of fun to make myself an ebike or whatever this thing is.