Hello from France

[tnello]

My name is Stanley and I am a retired Chartered Engineer. I live in SW France with my wife Patsy who has a Myopathy (muscle weakness condition) and who is a wheelchair user. We currently have 2 powerchairs located on the two floors of our house and I am responsible for keeping these powerchairs, and other items of disability kit, in working order. In France we have found that the ‘locals’ have their wheelchair servicing paid by the state and this does not make the service agents competitive (similar to garages expecting costs to be covered by insurance).
For outdoor use, we use a Quickie F55s and our transport is a van fitted with a tailgate lift. Fortunantly, Patsy can transfer from her wheelchairs into the van’s swivelling passenger seat or onto a stairlift to take her to/from the first floor of our house. To provide independence for Patsy I have fitted powered access gates and a powered garage door, both of which are controlled by remotes.
My current challenge/problem is a lack if response, on low power settings, of the F55s joystick for R/L manouvering from a static start.
I am hoping that the forum can initially guide me to obtain the necessary software and cabling to undertake a tweak of the control software.

[Burgerman]

First check motors. The early F55 chairs were terrible. They had really weak 2 pole motors with fragile gearboxes that develop masses of backlash.

And worse, they had the Motor Compensation set incorrectly at 40mOhm. Should have been 90 to 110. That has a drastic affect on the amount of torque the 2 pole motors had. So much so the chair wont turn or move at slow speed settings at all.

Added to that was a mountain of turn acc and turn deceleration too making the things totally unpredictable.

So first you need 4 pole motors.
Second you need to up the motor compensation to 45 or 50 for the 4 pole motors (not higher!). And up to 110 for the old 2 pole motors.
Thirdly you need to set the following 4 settings to 100%

Turn Acceleration
Min Turn Acceleration
Turn Deceleration
Min Turn Deceleration

See the thread pinned on the forum for a cable.

[tnello]

Thanks for your helpful reply.

Our F55s powerchair is c2007 and I think that the motor change occurred around 2003 since Sunrise F55 motor spares differentiate before/after 2003.

I now have the software and I will apply your settings when I receive a cable from your recommended source.