My name is Mike Hayes and, on the internet and in other...specific circles...I go by the alias known as Bioteq. I am a software engineer by trade who has been studying electrical engineering in his own time for the past few years. Which, of course, has lead in to robotics and other fun things.
My mother lost the use of her left leg and, subsequently ended up losing the leg itself due to atrophy, from a massive tornado in 2011 -- I, too, was injured int his and nearly ended up in a power chair due to severely broken back, but was able to some how mend myself back together with sheer wheel power to not need the chairs. She, however, does use a chair. Her first one being a Jazzy and her newest one being some sort of Titan.
When she was awarded her newest chair, I took owership of the Jazzy for some specific purposes I wanted to do for it: Upgrade it for her life style. And those upgrades, planned, are as followed: Bigger and more aggressive read tires, actual tires for castors, turn the chair so big wheels are in the read and adjust electronics for such thing (already done,) convert it to have wireless connectivity (in process. This forum, which I found because of this one, is where I found the full data packet needed) -- I will then be adding front headlights, saddle bags and possibly moving over from lead acid to lithium battery supplies with some upgrade motors. This is so she can do her favorite thing: Yard work. IF you know much about stock jazzy, You would know their tires and castors are sub part for carpet, let alone going out in a yard.
I have no plans for suspension or anything but I may sneak a little radio in for her and a 'life line' button (the transmitter I have, is home built in a futaba casing. I built this a couple years ago and it has tons of added bonuses, like two way communication at very long distant) and that button would transmit to the receiver to allow me to know if she has a problem, such as a tip over.
Reading through some of these other threads, though, are giving me a bunch of other ideas as well. I truly hope this will be one hell of a surprise for my mother and, with any luck, I hope to be able to offer my 30 years of low level C programming experience (specialize in Linux and low level optimization of code / algorithm) and my few years of EE knowledge to you guys. I also build computers, so any computer hel you guys need as well, I'm always willing to help
Thank you again, for having this forum around. I found the one thing I needed and just knew immediately I wanted to be here and knew I wanted to contribute as much as I possibly can to this community. It means so much to me, as I am my mother's primary care and she means the world to me.
Be safe, guys (and girls?)
Mike Hayes.
P.s. I do accept PMs, but I also accept email if you wish that route.
it's my fist name above, an at, plus the word 'nano' and the word 'bit' put together, as one word, followed by the word net, with a period before it (.net)
