New chair!

[Burgerman]

Yes I do use that preset.

Seat back, yes and you must. Its so nose heavy that it will be unusable otherwise. And programming... Or its like sailing a boat.

[CPguy]

@ burgerman: May ask for an update please? How is your new chair doing?

[Burgerman]

Its not. Its gone back to invacare directly.

Its great for a lightweight user but brushless motors and a new heavy 190kg chair, (and 20 stone user) is a no go.
2 issues:

1. To make it steer, stop steering, when >> I << say so, requires some programming that no normal user will ever have access to. Or dealer. So even OEM programming wont fix that. Same with rolling an inch. You cant do it accurately, and you cant do it when you choose! Its all guesswork! It starts after you tell it, and stops rolling when it feels like it. So with all the tremor damping, rounding, soft start stop and smoothing removed, and with turn and forward acc and dec settings maxed out it is hopeless, still like driving a hovercraft. Quite how normal users get on with this arrangement baffles me entirely.

Fortunately the special version we have here allows an even more comprehensive set of tools/settings such as a turn acceleration / deceleration multiplier. And quite a few others. So that can be overcome. Mine now steers! And then it does turn, stop turning, and move 10mm accurately when you say so. So for personal use I can fix that. But it has another issue that is a real problem.

2. It has a ton of torque, and pulls 175A or more from the battery only once for less than a second. Checked in use with my clamp and a fluke logging meter as I drove. Try turn in space several times and you are out of luck. Itr rolls back power fast. Since this is more nose heavy and much heavier generally, than the old storm 3 it NEEDS this power to turn in place. So it pulls almost 200 battery amps while making only around 2/3rds the torque of a typical 4 pole. And this rapidly falls to around 30A. In just seconds. So you cannot drive. It literally feels like the battery is dead. Wait for 30 secs, and it gives a 1 second boost again and you are away! Until next time.

So it means maneuvering around my room was impossible. This isnt the stall detection, or the current rollback due to temperature its another rollback setting designed to protect battery and fuse/cables.

So I fired off a very tech email to the invacare brushless specialist with my findings. He replied that they needed to collect the chair. And that I would be refunded. No questions, no attempt to find a problem. There IS no fault. Its just not capable. And they obviously had this before. So I suggest its a good chair with these provisos:

a) You weigh 10 to 13 stone MAXIMUM. Ignore the 23.6 Stone claim. I am 3 stone less and it wasn't capable.
b) you move the seat back 3 or 4 inches at least.
c) You MUST do the programming mods I am talking about, and that will likely invalidate the warranty, or it will forever feel like you are driving a hovercraft.

It really does give a good smooth ride probably the best suspension on any chair I tried, and it is drawing just 2A at max speed with wheels off the deck. So range on the street should be enormous. But it doesn't have the torque (for long enough) for any serious weight or user that needs control.

The programming stuff applies to the storm 3 I have here too.

[CPguy]

Thank you very much for the detailed reply!

WOW. I am gob smacked. I am happy to read that you are getting refunded.

May I ask you to elaborate on the programming problems and solutions please? (via PM if you want) I commissioned a modification of a F55 frame using the brushless motors and 24 Volt lithium as a propulsion system.

I am only 72 kg (approx. 12 stone) and a F55 frame is not that heavy so I am confident that I can make it work by moving the centre of gravity backwards and adjusting the programming.

On a different note Invacare should build you a custom chair that works after you did all this development work for them...

[Burgerman]

You will be OK at your weight.

I will PM...

[CPguy]

Thank you very much for the PM. Its a treasure trove!

[ex-Gooserider]

Do they make a brush motor version of the chair? I know that the GB motors are better in theory, but it sounds like a brush motor version wouldn't have the same sort of excess current draw problems....

ex-Gooserider

[Burgerman]

But that chairs main attraction WAS the silent, brushless motors and nothing to wear out and great range.

[shirley_hkg]

Would foreign purchase be exempted from VAT ?

[Burgerman]

For export you dont have to pay VAT as far as I know.

[shirley_hkg]

Did yours have the same speed quote ?

[Burgerman]

Yes except speed is faster. 13kph. But thats easy to adjust to 13...

Unladen weight is 190 (centre footplate difference)

[Scooterman]

Has anyone else used the Retract 4 swing away mount.

I think it is the best swing away I ever had.

http://www.retract4.com/index.html

I made a swing-away when modding my chair last year. But it kept on swinging away when I didn’t want it too

It didn’t really swing away but it wouldn’t stay put, so in the end abounded it and made a fixed one instead.

Must have been a design floor on my part.

[steves1977uk]

You design floors SM? I think you meant flaw.

Steve

[Mechniki]

Has anyone else used the Retract 4 swing away mount.

I think it is the best swing away I ever had.

http://www.retract4.com/index.html

I made a swing-away when modding my chair last year. But it kept on swinging away when I didn’t want it too

It didn’t really swing away but it wouldn’t stay put, so in the end abandoned it and made a fixed one instead.

Must have been a design flaw on my part.

I think swing away's are overcomplicated. On my NHS Spectra, it's a scissor type with a sprung plate that hold it out straight. Where as a have a home made one (not in use currently) that was on my Mistral, that had a simple telescopic box steel with a winged screws to hold it straight. Basically it was four sections of box steel, and the last piece was solid steel with two hinges. The hinges would slide back into the box steel to lock it straight. I wish I knew where it was, so I could photograph it.

Underneath the armrest on most wheelchairs there is a small piece of box section. Find metal box that fit's that, etc

Whilst just thinking about it, if I were to remove the box section of steel from under the armrest and replace that with a longer length of box steel and mount it further forward, and put the current swing away

Sunrise Medical has it right, fricken Invacare
A controller fitted to a flip up armrest (if that were smarter it wouldn't need an attendant controller)

[Scooterman]

You design floors SM? I think you meant flaw.

Steve

Oops, silly me!

Well spotted Steve