Wheelchair wheel configuration

[ian]

Hi,

Powered wheelchairs come with either front, rear or centre mounted drive wheels, but which would be the best, for grip, drive and comfort in an off or on road use?

Central mounted drive wheels, those with the front and rear smaller caster wheels, are supposed to be more agile with smaller turning circles and I've been told, many times that front wheel drive cars have better grip. So is it really best practice to have most powered wheelchairs with rear drive wheels.

Would love to hear the views and experiences of others.

[Burgerman]

My views.
Tested several different front drives, a couple more of centre drives, and many rear drives.
ALL my chairs are rear drive.

1. Front drive. Is an unstable platform. The rear keeps on trying to overtake the front, and it really wants to try and go the oposite way. So at anything faster than a crawl, or when turning, these need an electronic gyro. That means that the control system takes priority over your commands. So if you try and program a chair to actually steer in a linear fashion so it turns by how much and when YOU tell it the system doesent always allow it. So the faster you go the worse they steer. That rules them out for me completely. Ant theres a huge chunk of heavy chair and 2 casters swinging around behind you taking out your furniture, and people toes in the pub. So again not for me.

2. Mid drives dont generally have a good ride as the front and rear arms are sprung into the ground to keep you upright on the centre wheels. Thats not suspention at all it just looks like it. ou sit on the drive wheels. So while the odd one has a tiny bit of suspension, most dont. And there are 4 small hard caster wheels rattling you about too. So also not for me. They are not unstable, but not stable. So no gyro needed. But they still tend to be less accurate at speed. The supposed better indoor maneoverability is debatable. They can have small benefits. But if things are tight enough for this to matter you really need to adapt your home or move. Unless you plan of getting better! Some do.

3. Rear drives. ALL stock rear drives are nose heavy. They sit you too far forwards over the saster wheels making them sluggish to steer, not enough traction of rear drive wheels, and they then usually have the stupid wide swing away foot rigging sticking out ahead of the caster wheels. making the chir unwieldy and long indoors. But it doesent need to be that way. They are directionally stable. Meaning that if something like terrain or in fact you change direction at speed, they naturally correct themslves. They offer the best outdoor ride, have nothing sticking out if correctly designed.

So my choice is:
Rear drive. Seat relocated rearwards. Centre smaller footplate to allow that and this shortens the chair and puts the majority of weight on the rear drive wheels. And shortens the whole chair.

Then you get the best of all. Great indoors, best outdoor, light easy stable performance, can take proper programming that gives linear accurate steering and the best smoothest ride.

Take a look at any f my chairs to see this.

[Burgerman]

There is also hybrid chairs.

Thise are like a rear drive, with short chassis and the seat moved back. It results in a rear drive setup that has the drive wheel too far forwards and so now has a set of full time sprung caster trailing behind. Resulting in what is a mid drive/rear drive hybrid. I dont like the extra rear casters.

[martin007]

I vote for four wheels and rear wheel drive.

[Burgerman]

I think that most think they prefer front or cebtre drive. Because all stock rear wheel drive chairs come configured really nose heavy, wih swing away footrets, so that they dont turn well. And cant manoever well indoors, etc. Why? Beats me. But this is why the centre drive chairs ended up popular. Because they seem better indoors.

Once rear drive is set up correctly which takes a little effort and work much better, they are as good indoors. Much better outdoors.