TV - My Perfect Wheelchair

Chorlie

intranicity wrote: »

Just watched the programme, admire his tenacity, but hope he doesn't end up bankrupt! I'm really not sure that £10k for a chair every 2 years is realistic for 200 people a year, somehow, he needs to get the price nearer £2.5K to have a chance, and then a slim one IMHO.

I'm looking for a new chair at the moment, and luckily have a very decent budget, but I'd still be £5k short of his chair that appears to be fragile and with an expected life of less than 2 years!!!!

I'll be having CF bits on my chair, but think i'll stick to Titanium for the frame, and get a few sets of wheels, hopefully I might even get 5 years out of it.

Pauliboo, agree with Chorlie, £300 for a chair is a tiny budget, unless it's just to sit in and be pushed around? Decent cushions cost that alone or more.... Good luck though, whatever way you go

I'm using a Titanium chair now with all Titanium parts including the push rim on the wheels, so the weight of my chair is close to his at 8.5Kgs and it was less than half the price (including a few hundred £ cushion). It's also adjustable and hasn't cracked when I've dropped it getting it in / out of my car. It's coming up 3yrs old and I have no plans to change it for at least another 2 and when I do I'll buy the same chair again since its the best one I've owned.

I really do hope the guy gets it to market, but as intranicity says it's needs to be under £3k and be expected to last 5yrs of daily use.

rogerblack

To add a bit to the above.
Wheelchair users - self propelled ones at least - tend for some reason to have well developed arms.
I have no idea why this is

Hence, lifting a couple or four extra kilos may not really be a huge issue.
It clearly might be if it's a carer, who may be not very able - lifting a chair into a vehicle after you've transferred.

In use.
Well, you're pushing around probably well over 70kg, in most cases, so an extra 4 isn't going to make a huge difference.
What can actually make a huge difference in that case is wheel design.

If the wheel has lower rolling resistance on the terrain, you can use less force.
This is a tradeoff.
You can't optimise rolling resistance for a flat concrete floor indoors, and outside surfaces, perhaps including grass.

It seems to me that it might be better to work out assist devices able to provide a small amount of assist, for short periods, rather than going balls-out on reducing the weight.

A kilo of modern (lifep04) batteries can store lots more than the equivalent weight of lead-acid, and similarly, modern brushless motors designed right, produce heaps of power for their size.

pauliboo

Chorlie wrote: »

To be honest £300 will only get you a basic NHS style wheelchair, you'd be better seeing if you can get your GP to refer you to wheelchair services or if not get a wheelchair company out with a few chair to try, find what you need and the measurements, then once you know this look on the like of eBay for that type of chair with those sizes.

Thanks for the advice.

I have arthritis in my spine and now in my hip. Most of the time I can get around with my stick, but recently I have been getting worse and have become house-bound on a few occasions.

I'm after a light-ish manaul chair around the 12kg mark.

I'll only be using it on my bad days, so I don't really want to spend too much - plus I've just spent £2k on the AP for my new Motability car so don't have much leftover.

I can see that if I get any worse sooner than expected then I'll have to look into a proper chair, but for now I'll be happy with the cheapies.