Burgerman wrote:Are you aware what 'torque' ACTUALLY does?
No! Thanks for the explanation. I have researched this over the last several weeks and have found no definitive explanation of what Permobil's torque setting does, especially in combination with the ESP module.
I had inferred from that research that the torque setting altered motor compensation in high demand situations, such as turning from a stopped position and slowly going over a threshold.
It is still a bit of a mystery to me how the combination of the ESP module and the torque setting affect the final output to the motors.
The challenges I have faced in trying to get the wheelchair back in operation are:
1. Lack of knowledge about how the torque setting and ESP module interact
2. Misdirection by the technical folks at NuMotion and Permobil (ah, it must be the brakes!).
3. Lack of an ability to set other than dealer level parameters on a Permobil wheelchair
4. Potential interactions of having bad motors when the wheelchair was new and me not knowing how a wheelchair should behave.
A potentially significant contributing factor was the failure of the initial set of motors that came with the wheelchair. Not knowing those motors were failing, I complained that the wheelchair did not have enough power to go over a threshold. The manager of the tech department at my semi-local NuMotion said that could be fixed by adjusting the torque. We made the four hour round trip to have the torque adjusted, which seemed to improve that.
But, this was my first wheelchair. I did not know what a wheelchair was supposed to feel like. So, I could not tell if things were amiss.
Shortly after the torque setting was adjusted up to 100% (about 4 years ago, now), the initial set of motors failed catastrophically. They were replaced under warranty, but the torque setting was not returned to the as-delivered state of 55%.
I spent the next four years burning out motors on a regular basis. I kept insisting that there must be something wrong and was met with a response that I was not a typical wheelchair user (too many miles and in the mountains).
I am hopeful that having good motors, lowering the torque to 55%, and having a seemingly good ESP module will not only change how the chair behaves, but will allow the motors to last substantially longer.
Steve