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Permalink Reply by Linda Jane McLean on September 22, 2011 at 20:06

One interesting story, David.

This might get the ball rolling.

I knew an engineer who had broken his neck, but was still able to use a manual wheelchair. However, hospital wheelchairs have such skinny spokes, that he felt that he was not achieving much momentum per push. Because of his diminished feeling, he was also prone to damaging the skin on his hands.

He got together with some engineering friends, and they redesigned the wheels. They made the spokes much wider, but hollow, so the chair was no heavier. He could make much more headway with the larger spokes - and tried to tell the NHS about it.....but some fell on stony ground. It was not their problem - they were glad he was happy.

But wheelchairs have fantastic potential for design improvement and energy capture. I'm sorry if my story was simple, but sometimes people get ideas from the simplest of things!

 

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Permalink Reply by Linda Jane McLean on October 1, 2011 at 20:03

Another thing.......

I have just been browsing on the information on stair lifts, which of course were not usable by the engineer mentioned previously.

He was however determined to have minimum disruption in the household, and wanted to remain sleeping in his bedroom upstairs.

How to do it, safely and comply with all the rules and regulations? He did not want to be trapped by fire. Friends again came to his rescue and installed a platform in a cupboard which had access to the upper landing,  and added a  caw the handle  mechanism, with pulley weights was added. There had also been the idea of a covered platform outside the house, (where a window would simply have become a door), to take him upstairs.
It allowed me to see how many ideas are out there once someone has really engaged those that matter in the problem  

He was thrilled with his success, as it gave him the access to all of his house, was not a risk in fire, and was easy for him to operate.

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Permalink Reply by Ewan E Innes on October 21, 2012 at 20:01

Interesting story Linda

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Permalink Reply by Tom Kruer on November 12, 2012 at 14:24

David:
As a design Engineer, I can tell you that regenerative braking on wheelchairs can certainly be done. However, most of the time you won’t normally be riding your brakes when going downhill. Therefore, there is a limited amount of energy that you will actually be able to recover using this approach. And the amount of energy recovered, combined with the high efficiency losses in the system will not justify the added weight of the required motor/generator and storage batteries. (Sadly, you will hopefully have to push the added weight of those components up the hills).
Does that makes sense?

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