Track chair power upgrade!

Foxcurtis

1 µW
Joined
Dec 9, 2021
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2
New to the group. Someone told me to post my project on this forum and someone will be able to help! So I was in a hit and run and left dead on the side of the road. After a year and several hospitals later I am doing the best I can paralyzed from chest down. Finally got help and was fortunate to get an amazing track chair! I’m no engineer or electronic guru but I do know that powered scooters and wheelchairs have been using big heavy lead acid deep cycle batteries and large heavy brushed motors just like they have since the 1980s! Great technology for then but with the new brushless motors and all the different crazy awesome Lithium type batteries there is no reason that a track chair costing 20k$ has a top speed of 2.8mph doesn’t have enough power to climb through the ditch beside the street! Powers out on a 30 degree incline! Terrible! I’m really hoping someone can help out find the proper better motors batteries or controllers to get some more speed and torque out of this project! I’m not trying to set records or have a speed demon machine. Off road is rough so high speed isn’t necessary but 2.8mph, my mom walks faster than that when she’s in a hurry! If you made it this far thanks so much for hearing me out and I would really appreciate some possible ideas designs to fix my problem!
Thanks Curtis
 

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Hi Curtis, welcome to the ES.
That is quite a machine you have there, lots of potential for improvement and fun.! :bigthumb:
Those drive motors can likely handle more speed and climb ability if allowed to by their controllers, so i would suggest the controllers would be the thing to investigate first.
This is a job for a specialist tech guy, so you may want to post your location to see if there is an ES member local to you who can help.
But, care will be needed to avoid causing unwanted problems that could immobilise you.
I suspect that machine has many functions other than just track drives ?... chair hoist etc ? ...So dont do anything that may mess those up.
Keep us informed.
 
One cheap upgrade you can use would be an inclinometer for your chair. You say it poops out on a 30 degree slope, but 30 degrees is a 58% grade and more than enough to defeat any but the most specialist hill climbing vehicles. At a true 30 degrees, you'd be at serious risk of tipping backwards onto your head.

That's not to say you can't improve your chair. I recommend researching salvaged automotive batteries to find a good combination of high energy density, high power density, decent longevity, and reasonable cost.

The photos you've furnished don't give us much to go on, in terms of understanding how much power you have now versus how much you could get from the same motors. Do you have any technical specs for your chair, or a model number/name we could look up?
 
So far I haven’t been able to get much information at all from the manufacturer because honestly I asked them for voltage range watts and rpm but got nothing back from them😕 I am originally from Montana but I’m lucky enough to be in Yuma Az during part of the winter. I would love to meet some professional that could check out what I have and point me towards what’s next safely.
I am going to try again going through there company trying to find some exact information on current components.
 
Foxcurtis said:
Finally got help and was fortunate to get an amazing track chair! I’m no engineer or electronic guru but I do know that powered scooters and wheelchairs have been using big heavy lead acid deep cycle batteries and large heavy brushed motors just like they have since the 1980s! Great technology for then but with the new brushless motors and all the different crazy awesome Lithium type batteries there is no reason that a track chair costing 20k$ has a top speed of 2.8mph doesn’t have enough power to climb through the ditch beside the street! Powers out on a 30 degree incline! Terrible! I’m really hoping someone can help out find the proper better motors batteries or controllers to get some more speed and torque out of this project! I’m not trying to set records or have a speed demon machine. Off road is rough so high speed isn’t necessary but 2.8mph, my mom walks faster than that when she’s in a hurry! If you made it this far thanks so much for hearing me out and I would really appreciate some possible ideas designs to fix my problem!

What you need to do depends on what the chair has already.

Lead acid and brushed motors will likely do just fine for faster speeds and for going up slopes. Lead batteries actually help you because they are heavy ballast to keep the chair from falling over on slopes; if you change them for lighter ones you may have to add weight down low to keep this from happening.

It just takes different gearing for the faster speeds, and more power for going up slopes. But each one of those things needs the opposite gearing--if you change the gearing to make it faster, it will be harder for it to go up slopes. If you change the gearing to go up slopes better, it will go slower.


If you can change out the controller system for one that operates at a higher voltage, you can change the battery to one that provides more voltage, and then the top speed will also be higher. But the battery also must provide at least as much power as the present one, preferably more, without straining it or causing too much voltage drop, so that it can also go up the slopes.


A 30 degree slope is very very very steep, and I would not expect it to be able to do that.
You might be able to change the battery and controllers to do it, but it may overheat the motors, depending on how long it has to run to do this, and how much more power it will take to do it than you already have. If it takes more power than the motors can handle even for a short burst, then you'll have to replace those too. As noted above, changing the gearing to make it slower will make it more able to climb a slope, so that may fix the problem without changing the motors or controllers or batteries.


What is the total weight of the chair, plus you, plus anything else you would be carrying up a 30-degree slope?

What is the maximum slope you will need to go up, and how long is the slope, and how fast must you go up the slope?

Knowing these things will help figure out how much power you must have to do it.


Do you have any information on exactly what batteries, motors, and controller system the chair has? That will help figure out what you may have to change out, and what you can probably keep.
 
Foxcurtis said:
New to the group.

Welcome!

From the photos you posted you seem to have the "Action Trackstander TR" power wheelchair: https://trackchairsoutheast.com/products/trackstander-tr/

And google-ing the Curtis enAble mobility system I found this manual: https://cdn.curtisinstruments.com/products/manuals/enAble40_manual_en.pdf
It seems to have programmable speed options. So the standard 3mph top speed listed on the website of the trackchair might be able to be adjusted higher if it is a programmed maximum. But maybe the 3mph is a legal limit? As in a "walking pace mobility aid" type of thing?
 
Taking a look at the specs on the website it seems the chair is running on two 12V batteries and a 24V DC Motor. The batteries are rated to 100 amps. The Motors have a gearing ratio of 24:1 so that is very very short, it is needed in order for the motors to not overheat due to the low speed.

The Curtis Control system has a max Current of 90 Amps, thats giving your system a Max Power of a little over 2kw.

I think if you are really into it, it would be possible to swap the controller and batteries and maybe even the motors. The manual actually gives very detailed info on controller wiring and wiring from the Handheld control.
 
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