turtle mode on permobil c300

[Aghajoon]

Hi everyone

yesterday I was using the chair with straight seat (no lift/tilt). everything was ok but after a few hours and no changing in seat position a blinking turtle appeared and after about 1km it was a constant turtle
I should mention it was not a nonstop ride and I don't think it was overheated
could it be because my battery dropped bellow 50%?

[Irving]

turtle usually means a inhibit is active, was it impacting speed at all? Could be an indication that a connection has come loose or an inhibit switch has stuck open or closed. Try cycling all seat lift & tilt options in case its a sticky switch and if that fails, try reseating all cables on ISM/Seating controller. If no joy still then will need to identify which inhibit is active which really needs a programmer.

its unlikely battery level will have an impact, but of course charge it up to be sure. if that is the case then might be some voltage sensitive part playing up as i'm not aware of any inhibits related to battery volts (though Permobil do odd things).

[Aghajoon]

I just wanted to say I think I found the problem
I'm pretty sure it's the heat. it happened to me one more time and it was 102f/39c outside

[Burgerman]

That wouldnt do it. Unless you were outdoors climbing a hill or something. Even then I dont think you get a turtle. It just rolls back amps (torque) and gives a red LED? Dont remember exactly on that system.

[Aghajoon]

That wouldnt do it. Unless you were outdoors climbing a hill or something. Even then I dont think you get a turtle. It just rolls back amps (torque) and gives a red LED? Dont remember exactly on that system.

that's what I thought and it makes me nervous because maybe something is wrong with my wheelchair
it was a flat road and I'm only 50k. it shouldn't be much pressure for the wheelchair

[Burgerman]

Could be an indication that a connection has come loose or an inhibit switch has stuck open or closed. Try cycling all seat lift & tilt options in case its a sticky switch and if that fails, try reseating all cables on ISM/Seating controller.

Above!

[Aghajoon]

Could be an indication that a connection has come loose or an inhibit switch has stuck open or closed. Try cycling all seat lift & tilt options in case its a sticky switch and if that fails, try reseating all cables on ISM/Seating controller.

I'm pretty sure none of those are the problem because in last month it only happened once in a hot day and I noticed it after 2-3km and I didn't change any seat lift & tilt options at all.
turtule sign disappeard after I stopped for 5min and appeared again after 500m

[Jay_x]

So when the turtle appears does your chair slow down to a crawl?

Or are you still able to go full speed despite seeing the turtle?

FWIW these are exactly the kinds of issues i had continually with my permobil, constant random electronic issues that techs would have a very hard time tracking down.

[snaker]

I just wanted to say I think I found the problem
I'm pretty sure it's the heat. it happened to me one more time and it was 102f/39c outside

This happened to me too (my chair is not permobil). In hot days, the chair moved like a turtle (about 1 km/h ). If I stopped some time under tree shade, it could move fast as normal. But after a couple of minutes under the summer heat, it was slow again. This problem was due to the "Current Fallback Temperature" parameter in the controller. It had been set 50oC by default. I changed it to 70oC and the problem was resolved.

[Burgerman]

Fallback is around 60 degrees C or so. It needs to actiullay get even hotter, It happens when the power module is worked hard. The amps going through the controller heat it up. Soccer players add fans for e.g. as it happens to them due to continuous left/right/hard accelleration for 90 mins. If its warm it happens easier. I get it too when cleaning drive or cutting grass. You get it because you are doing hills and in high temperatures and rolling non stop for hours.

In the original posters case he wasnt moving uch or working it hard? And it was the seating elevator that wasnt working. So I think that its unlikely to be the cause for him. He only did a easy 1km in stages?

yesterday I was using the chair with straight seat (no lift/tilt). everything was ok but after a few hours and no changing in seat position a blinking turtle appeared and after about 1km it was a constant turtle
I should mention it was not a nonstop ride and I don't think it was overheated

[Burgerman]

Unless something is binding maybe, like a caster wheel or maybe some cord or rope wrapped around the motor output shaft, or a brake is dragging /corroded or something. That would increae Amps, Even a pretty flat tyre, and cause a power module to get overheated even in say 10 mins of light use.

Burgerman wrote:
That wouldnt do it. Unless you were outdoors climbing a hill or something. Even then I dont think you get a turtle? It just rolls back amps (torque) and gives a red LED? Dont remember exactly on that system.


>>that's what I thought and it makes me nervous because maybe something is wrong with my wheelchair
it was a flat road and I'm only 50k. it shouldn't be much pressure for the wheelchair

One possibility. And that could be heat related cause. There were some very basic early permobil c300 chairs that had a terrible weak VSI controller/system. These are very low power and so can easily overheat even with normal relatively light loads. Most had Pilot plus, VR2 or R-Net systems though and so should never be an issue.

Remember that Snaker is in hot vietnam and does long distances and hills... Is lithium powered and doing 50 plus miles a day or more at times! Non stop. His experience will be very different to yours doing 1 km with stops!

Snaker, 50c is too low for serious use. I too set mine to 70c. In your case you needed that. But it shouldnt be a problem to do 1km in stages even with stock temp rollback settings.

[Aghajoon]

So when the turtle appears does your chair slow down to a crawl?

yes.it slows down to like half the full speed

This happened to me too (my chair is not permobil). In hot days, the chair moved like a turtle (about 1 km/h ). If I stopped some time under tree shade, it could move fast as normal. But after a couple of minutes under the summer heat, it was slow again. This problem was due to the "Current Fallback Temperature" parameter in the controller. It had been set 50oC by default. I changed it to 70oC and the problem was resolved.

I'm pretty sure mine has the same problem. but I don't have a prpgramer to check the "Current Fallback Temperature" settings
at least I feel better it's not a faulty part I hope
do you use it in normal flat surface or you have heavy use?

Unless something is binding maybe, like a caster wheel or maybe some cord or rope wrapped around the motor output shaft, or a brake is dragging /corroded or something. That would increae Amps, Even a pretty flat tyre, and cause a power module to get overheated even in say 10 mins of light use.

damn.I remembered somthing and i'm nervous again
it's too hard to push my wheelchair in neutral. could it be the problem?
thereare some things I need to mention
1. I don't feel the motors are under pressure .it moves with no problem (with motors)
2. if there is something wrong with my breaks or other parts,batteries must empty much faster than normal. right? in my case i think it's normal. maybe I'm wrong. I think I can go like 15-20km. I've never tested it

One possibility. And that could be heat related cause. There were some very basic early permobil c300 chairs that had a terrible weak VSI controller/system. These are very low power and so can easily overheat even with normal relatively light loads. Most had Pilot plus, VR2 or R-Net systems though and so should never be an issue.

I bought it it second hand and I don't know which model it is and when is the production year. but there is a 2009 date on wheels

[ex-Gooserider]

How hard a chair is to push when in 'free-wheel' mode varies depending on the motor / gearbox / freewheel design....

Some chairs have the freewheel lever separate two of the gears in the gearbox, and those are fairly easy to push as you are only having to turn the output shaft and possibly part of the gear-train in the box itself...

Other chairs have the free-wheel mechanism as part of the 'parking brake' where the lever simply releases the brake mechanically, the same way it is released electrically when driving normally. These chairs will be MUCH harder to push in freewheel mode as you are having to backdrive the entire gearbox and motors...

The easiest way to tell if you can see the motors is to look at where the free-wheel lever goes into the motor. If it goes into the gearbox then it is almost certainly disconnecting the gears. If it goes into the brake assembly on the end of the motor opposite the gearbox, it is releasing the brake...

The other way, which is a bit less reliable, is to see what happens if you try to turn the controller on and drive the chair when in free-wheel mode... A brake disconnecting motor should have a microswitch in the assembly that will cause the controller to give an error and refuse to turn on, as the motors would still drive the chair (with no brakes!) if they had power. A disconnecting gearbox MIGHT have a switch to disable the controller but doesn't really need it, since the motors aren't connected to the wheels in free-wheel mode, you can power them up all you want, but it won't move the chair...

(Some folks with brake disconnects will bypass the freewheel inhibit switch so they can drive around in freewheel w/o the brake clicking noise, but this means they can have problems w/ rolling away on hills, so it's an "advanced" hack that is probably only suitable for folks that can easily re-engage the brakes when needed.)

ex-Gooserider