by JoeC » 08 Aug 2010, 17:04
This review is written from the perspective of me, an able bodied mechanical engineer who has been fixing and building chairs for my wife for the last five years. I have had my wrenches on the Invacare Ranger X 3G, Quicke P222SE, Quickie S626, Quickie S646SE, Quickie P200, and have had the chance to see a wide variety of chairs in a less "up to my elbows" capacity. My wife is presently using the Permobil C350 as a demo to see if she is interested in making this her next chair.
Overall Impression:
The Permobil C350 does seem to be well built, and many of the parts are made from machined castings. The moving parts of the chair are well hidden, so it is probably attractive for people who don't want a lot of visible mechanisms or wires on display. The standard adjustments to arm rests, leg rests, etc,are all made with metric hex keys. When I tried to adjust the foot rest height, the screw was so tight that I was afraid of breaking it off before it would loosen. It doesn't make the chair easier to work on, but it will make it more attractive for people who care about not having a lot of screw heads visible. Overall, the chair looks like a polished product and it looks like it will be fairly durable. It does have front and rear tie-down points.
Driving:
I drive a heavily re-programmed Quickie P200 about two miles once a week (meeting my wife at the gym for her soccer practice- her P200 is built for sports, not for comfort), so I have more experience driving powerchairs than the majority of able bodied folks. The Permobil C350 we received was programmed very poorly. The joystick is very delayed, steering is very soft, and indoors it is had to pull up to a desk or turn around in small places because the chair will hesitate before moving and then jump. This could probably be fixed with a real programmer, but we weren't given one.
The motors are geared for 6.5 mph, slower than we are used to. They are very quiet, and with the R-net controller they did not seem to have trouble going up any ramps or curb cuts, or going through a loose gravel patch on the way home. This was with my 220 pounds in the chair, and I also found that he four-wheel suspension was very effective in absorbing bumps in the road. They were especially effective in dealing with curb cuts- the sharp upward slope would typically slam the Quickie P200 hard enough to cause me some discomfort, but the Permobil handled it so well that I didn't even feel it. Going over broken joints in the sidewalk still gave a small jolt, but in my opinion the suspension was better than the one in the Quickie S646SE.
Seating:
The swing-away joystick rotates to the side. This is stupid. Almost every chair I have seen uses a parallelogram mechanism to move the joystick back to allow you to pull up to a desk while keeping the joystick pointed forward. With the Permobil, you need to mentally rotate your joystick input, pushing to the right if you want to go forward, pushing forward if you want to turn left, etc. The swing-away is also very stiff, and my wife can't do it on her own.
The arm rests flip up, which could be useful if you only do slide transfers or use a lift. They flex down if you support yourself on the ends of them, so I wouldn't expect them to be very trustworthy for someone who does stand-and-pivot transfers. The foot rests also flip up instead of swinging out, so if you do stand-and-pivot transfers, this chair is not for you!
The power seating all needs to be configured in a particular sitting posture before the chair will unlock the full forward drive speed. This is surely able to be changed with the right programmer, but we don't have access to one. I find a little bit of hysteresis in the position when the chair thinks its OK to start driving- you approach the proper position from one direction and the point when the light switches to indicate full speed, and then approach the proper seat position from the other direction and the light comes on at a different point. This suggests to me that they are using potentiometers to determine seat position, and in my professional (and wheelchair) experience, position potentiometers are not very reliable. They drift, they go out, and when they do they need to be replaced and/or recalibrated. This was one of the things that went seriously wrong with her Invacare's seating system. The problem with this is that the sitting posture that she uses for driving outside and maintaining her balance is not the one that Permobil dictated must be used in order to go full speed. Maybe for somebody who likes to sit the way they say you need to sit, this would be fine! Not for her.
On the topic of maintaining balance, the whole seat rocks in all directions like you are sitting on a huge spring. This is because of the seat elevator- most chairs I have seen with seat elevators are like this. If you prefer to feel like you are sitting on top of a solid stack of steel, this might bother you.
Chair Size:
I measured 25 inches wide, 44 inches long from the anti-tips to the heel of the foot rest when in the "ok to drive" position. This puts the chair length at about 50 inches with the foot rests flipped down (12 inches longer than her present chair), although you can flip the foot rests up (if you can physically reach to do that) and retract the legs, and get to a length of somewhat less than 44 inches. This is still a full 6 inches longer than her Invacare Ranger X 3G with 90 degree fixed angle swing-away foot rests. The arm rests are at least an inch wider than the wheels, making the chair even bigger than it needs to be. The spacing of the front casters is wider than on her present chair, about as wide as the drive wheels. This makes it harder (or impossible) to pull into certain narrow spaces that she could reach before, like under her desk. She can still make it under the desk, but only at one particular angle, and it's like threading a needle- not easy when the chair is lunging and jumping with delayed response.
About the arm rests- I know that I'm not being picky by complaining about their width because although this is a demo chair that still has the tags on it and has barely been used, the outside of the armrests are already covered in streaks of white paint from whatever hallways somebody has tried to navigate.
Conclusion:
You'd have to try this one for yourself, but if you have a technician who is really on the ball (and can actually program it), then it is worth considering. Not for people who do stand-and-pivot and can't flip up a footrest. Not for people who like to keep themselves balanced in their chairs but don't have a lot of muscle to make corrections if the seat is springy. Not for people who particularly care about their sitting posture while driving at full speed (to be fair- this could be fixed by the right programming, and you may try it and like the sitting position they picked for you). Not for people with very small houses vans. Not for people who need to work on their own chair, or need to take it apart and fit it into a non-ramped vehicle. Probably also not good for flying, since it is quite heavy and I have a hard time seeing any immovable frame pieces.