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Not a Wheelchair [video]

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Re: Not a Wheelchair [video]

#91

Post by tsumnia »

JshWright wrote: post #82
tsumnia wrote: post #62

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…

> Jerry's Rig His name is Zach...

Thanks, I'm not a subscriber to their channel, so I went off the channel's name.

Re: Not a Wheelchair [video]

#92

Post by komuW »

there's a Kenyan guy[1] who makes electric wheeelchairs out of recycle laptop batteries.

and it has some nice off-road capabilities.

I can't find his website but he appears to be active on instagram[2]

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-49528426/kenyan-inn...

2. https://www.instagram.com/linccelltechnology/

Re: Not a Wheelchair [video]

#93

Post by TylerE »

lmilcin wrote: post #65
mrfusion wrote: post #56

Did he say there’s no differential? Solid read axle? That could be hard to turn on non dirt surfaces?

He said so and it does seem to have solid axle and it only shows it driving on dirt and grass. One way to solve it would be to have only single wheel powered. If you get that one powered wheel lifted you could shift your weight to tip entire vehicle (assuming you took care to load it evenly).

Or just use a limited slip diff. Allows some slip for cornering, but only, well, a LIMITED amount you don't end up with one wheel in the air spinning like mad and the one with traction not moving at all.

Re: Not a Wheelchair [video]

#94

Post by TylerE »

geocrasher wrote: post #74
uoaei wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Almost think the ultimate solution here would be 2 motors, one per side, and skid steer action. Can then pivot in place, or turn at any radius desired. Would map quite naturally to the two joystick control system too.

You can drive all 4 wheels then which will do even better off-road, and the suspension actually gets a lot simpler since you can totally do away with streering and all the assocaited geometry.

Re: Not a Wheelchair [video]

#95

Post by undersuit »

jacquesm wrote: post #80
undersuit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having the front be single wheeled leads to the a lot of instability because turns change your center of gravity. I just bought a recumbent bike and I had to search extensively to find a nice two-wheeler because the 2 front wheel 3-wheelers are quite popular, just like the motorcycle equivalent. Most bikes and motorcycles with three wheels have the same steering linkage you'd find in a car.

Be very careful with two wheel recumbents, I've got half an Ikea's worth of steel bits in my right leg on account of one. The danger is in when your foot slips off the pedal even for a moment and hits the pavement on the downstroke, you'll brake with just that one foot and it is a feed-forward mechanism that you can not break out of. Nasty, to put it mildly. If I had foreseen that particular failure mode I'd have eit…

Thanks for the advice! I've picked up a tall one, and I'm definitely going to keep your story in mind when choosing my clipless pedals to hopefully minimize that risk.

Re: Not a Wheelchair [video]

#97

Post by a-wu »

GordonS wrote: post #88
a-wu wrote: post #16

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.

> my power wheelchair costs north of $50k 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?

Yeah I use a rehab chair. It’s specifically designed for the non-ambulatory whereas a lot of the cheaper wheelchairs are designed for the semi-ambulatory. My specific model is the Permobil F3 which another user found starts at £10k in the UK.

Re: Not a Wheelchair [video]

#98

Post by GordonS »

a-wu wrote: post #97
GordonS wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my power wheelchair costs north of $50k 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?

Yeah I use a rehab chair. It’s specifically designed for the non-ambulatory whereas a lot of the cheaper wheelchairs are designed for the semi-ambulatory. My specific model is the Permobil F3 which another user found starts at £10k in the UK.

Thanks, I'm totally ignorant of what is out there for mobility so figured I'd be looking at the wrong thing :)

Re: Not a Wheelchair [video]

#100

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

It's pretty cool.

Good medical equipment is always going to be expensive.

Mist disabled folks won't be able to afford this, and, of the ones that can, they may not want or need them.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't make them, but they probably won't get rich on them.

If anyone watched the Apple keynote, one of the sessions was introduced by Meg Frost, who rides the most badass wheelchair I've seen: https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=1299

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