List of RWD chairs available in US. Any additions?

[Jay_x]

I am once again in the market for a chair. These are the RWD chairs I am looking at.

Permobil: discontinued all RWD chairs.

Quickie: discontinued all RWD chairs except the Q200R which is their bottom, basic chair. Looks like it has shit suspension. Not interested.

Ottobock: does not sell power chairs in US

Invacare Storm Rx: This is the chair I have now, not very impressed.

Bounder 300: Lots of pros and cons with this chair.

Magic Mobility V4: look like a great chair, no high speed package available though, which is important to me

Quantum R-TRAK: I will be demoing this one soon

Amylior Alltrack: no idea why people call this a RWD chair, its a "hybrid" but it has both front and back casters like a MWD does which I hate. It looks like a MWD chair to me. Not interested, HATE rear casters.

Is that it? Are there any other RWD chairs available in the US?

[emilevirus]

I'm curious. What are your cons of a Bounder?

[Jay_x]

I'm curious. What are your cons of a Bounder?

Cons on the Bounder:

Eats battery charges for lunch with high speed package, could be fixed with lithium option but not sure my insurance will cover that.

Bulky and stodgy and not very maneuverable in tight spaces.

HATE the exposed chain, I had a bounder already and a rock kicked up and got caught in the chain and then the gear box. Tore it all up, very expensive fix. Just put an enclosure around the chain! Seems obvious, but no they never listen.

Loud. It whhhhiiiiiirrrs all the time because of the chain being exposed. Hating hearing that constant whirring sound.

elevator design is dumb as hell. Instead of tucking in nicely like every other chair, the entire elevator sits under the seat and adds like 4 or 5 inches to the seat height. Absolutely brain dead design. Especially considering every other chair manufacturer on earth has figured out how to do it properly.

Old, set in their ways. EVerything with this chair is old. Old tech all over. Its a company ran by old people that don't like to innovate or change anything, ever. Like I said I had one and I had to deal with these people. they FINALLY got modern joysticks a couple years ago. Before that it was a box from the Jurassic era made in house and super expensive to replace.

Seating options are terrible. This is of course very subjective, but I really don't like their seating options.

that is what comes to mind at the moment.

[emilevirus]

I just ordered one. Looking online, this simply seems the best for offroad. I was looking at other options like you but there isn't a lot. I wanted some kind of suspension and high speed which Bounder seems to be the only viable choice.
I ordered it without batteries as I'll be fitting a big Lithium battery so range shouldn't be an issue.
Thanks for warning me about the chain. Could probably 3D print an enclosure.
Now they use R-Net or Linx so we can find cheap replacements on eBay. They wanted $1200 for the fancy touchscreen joystick. I told them to fit the basic joystick. I got the fancy joystick on eBay for $80 so I managed to save $1000 there!

[Jay_x]

Yup, if you need both off road AND high speed its literally the only option. I do not know of another one. The suspension if pretty good too.

[Burgerman]

Off road, and high speed just makes no sense at 24V. It cant work properly. Even with lithium it causes too high current and heats up motors, and wiring (impedance of each is pretty similar) so around 50% losses which matters at high currents (heats as waste). More amp controller isnt the answer as the motors on a bounder are not very low impedance anyway so wont pull more than a typical mobility system if that, unless completely stalled. They are half way between a typical 40mOhm 4 pole and a 100mOhm 2 pole in spite of physical size and 6 poles. Yes heavy, antiques wth a massive battery box looking like its falling out the back in my opinion.

[emilevirus]

Kinda sad no company makes a proper offroad wheelchair. It wouldn't be that hard to do.
The Magic Extreme X8 is one but no suspension whatsoever and very crappy steering design. Very costly as well.

[Jay_x]

The big plus about the bounder is that its the only chair in the US that will give you 8.5 mph, no other chair goes that fast. And if you get the lithium the range is perfectly fine.

Quantum tops out at 7 mph, same with Invacare. Magic only goes 6 mph.

[Fusiongoat]

I am once again in the market for a chair. These are the RWD chairs I am looking at.



Magic Mobility V4: look like a great chair, no high speed package available though, which is important to me

This hasn't been available in the US for a couple of years. Magic Mobility only sells MWD and 4x4 in the US now https://www.sunrisemedical.com/power-wh ... c-mobility

[Jay_x]

I am once again in the market for a chair. These are the RWD chairs I am looking at.



Magic Mobility V4: look like a great chair, no high speed package available though, which is important to me

This hasn't been available in the US for a couple of years. Magic Mobility only sells MWD and 4x4 in the US now https://www.sunrisemedical.com/power-wh ... c-mobility

wow, well that sucks. So that is one less RWD in the US.

[Burgerman]

The reason 8mph is scarce is the same reason that off road and speed doesent work. Its just not a good idea. For a bunch of reasons. 6 to 7 is the best balance of torque needed for heavy rehab chairs with 24V and the usual controller/battery/wiring constraints.

Its much easier to make a scooter/4x4 magic or the invacare version, type thing like the X8 is. As it eats way less battery than something thats tank steered and especialLy so off road. But then its not a wheelchair, cant turn in place, cant really be used as one.

To make a true off road 4x4 wheelchair with skid steer etc then you are looking at 48V system, maybe the 230Ah batts as a minimum, and say 120A with a 6mph speed. Tank steer NEEDS to be low geared like 3 to 4mph, and get that 6mph back from double the typical 24V level.

[Jay_x]

thats why I would never get a Bounder without lithium

[Jay_x]

By the way is there any way to juice the Quantum to give it another 1 mph or so?

[emilevirus]

You can put Lithium and increase output voltage to 25v. Don't know if it's possible on quantum though. Usually output voltage is set around 22v so that's about a 14% increase. It'd give you a bit under 1mph.

[emilevirus]

The reason 8mph is scarce is the same reason that off road and speed doesent work. Its just not a good idea. For a bunch of reasons. 6 to 7 is the best balance of torque needed for heavy rehab chairs with 24V and the usual controller/battery/wiring constraints.

Its much easier to make a scooter/4x4 magic or the invacare version, type thing like the X8 is. As it eats way less battery than something thats tank steered and especialLy so off road. But then its not a wheelchair, cant turn in place, cant really be used as one.

To make a true off road 4x4 wheelchair with skid steer etc then you are looking at 48V system, maybe the 230Ah batts as a minimum, and say 120A with a 6mph speed. Tank steer NEEDS to be low geared like 3 to 4mph, and get that 6mph back from double the typical 24V level.

I still don't know how trackchairs work with 24V R-Net system. It must be awful to drive. I have a chinese clone with a 60v system and it BARELY turns. It pulls 100+A and sometimes just stalls there.
I don't get why no one makes a 48v wheelchair controller. It'd make so much more stuff possible.

[Burgerman]

Because of the fact that they have no competition, regulations, tradition (anything more would baffle chair techs) etc.

[robert97]

With inspiration and construction details from Burgerman,
I built this wheelchair from a Permobil C350.
It does great indoors.
And outdoors it is super on rough terrain including
sand, gravel and snow .
It goes fast : 15mph

The main parts added to Permobil C350 are:
Roboteq hdc2460.
Lithium LiFe cells (5x14) 46 volts .
Apem3000 joystick.
Carlisle turf master 15 x 6.00-6NHS tires

[Raro]

Robert97, are the electric seat options on your C350 still working?

[Jay_x]

With inspiration and construction details from Burgerman,
I built this wheelchair from a Permobil C350.
It does great indoors.
And outdoors it is super on rough terrain including
sand, gravel and snow .
It goes fast : 15mph

The main parts added to Permobil C350 are:
Roboteq hdc2460.
Lithium LiFe cells (5x14) 46 volts .
Apem3000 joystick.
Carlisle turf master 15 x 6.00-6NHS tires

This looks awesome. Did you do anyting to the suspension? Or is that just the same suspension Permobil built it with?

[Burgerman]

Whyare thoe C350 chairs not centre drive? Or called R350? And why dont they still make them as its better than the current lot.

[Jay_x]

yeah the 350 is one of the only chairs with a nice shock absorber on the caster arm. Looks like great suspension actually

[shirley_hkg]

Permobil earlier Street was even better.
The first Will's chair .

[Jay_x]

Permobil earlier Street was even better.
The first Will's chair .

the model was called 'street'?

[shirley_hkg]

https://youtu.be/d-ambztBMy4?si=nvkREfueF4EoGCl5

[Jay_x]

https://youtu.be/d-ambztBMy4?si=nvkREfueF4EoGCl5

Wow, 8.5 mph and great suspension?? sign me up. and now its not available. that is exactly the chair I want right there. Actually I think he mispoke, Permobil chairs only ever went 7.5 mph as far as I know

[robert97]

C350: 15mph with Roboteq hdc2460. and 46volts.
yes, tilt, recline, foot plates are all working .
suspension is the same.

[Burgerman]

Wow, 8.5 mph and great suspension?? sign me up. and now its not available. that is exactly the chair I want right there. Actually I think he mispoke, Permobil chairs only ever went 7.5 mph as far as I know

7.5, 8, 8.5MPH, 13KPH, 13.5KPH all the same thing, its semantics.

A 8.5mph motor from sunrise is the exact same part number as the 8mph one. And thats replaced by the 13kph linix one. These ratings can be at 22.5V, 24V, etc too. And the ACTUAL speed depends on control system used, if that peak voltage is set high or low for headroom reasons, and especially on tyre type, load etc.

An 8mph chair can be all of those speeds.

For e.g an 8.5mph chair can (if relatively high impedance) be considerably slower on a heavy rehab chair than a low impedance 7.5mph one is. Even with everything else like battery, voltages etc and tyre size/type identical.

I have a 6mph F55 here that is much faster than the 6mph Q700R from the same company. Why? Because they just pick a number...

[Burgerman]

So why is every new north american chair now only mid or front drive? This is not the same issue in the rest of the world. Many of the same manufacturers make rear drive version too. Just never seen in the continntal US. That did not used to be the case.

[Raro]

C350: 15mph with Roboteq hdc2460. and 46volts.
yes, tilt, recline, foot plates are all working .
suspension is the same.

Does it also retain the ICS control module? I mean, the module that controls the seat motors, or did you remove it somehow? It's great to see the chair launch in the video.

[Burgerman]

He would have removed it presumably. It doesent speak roboteq...