special pleading

Robint said:
note its a solid chassis no suspension, or telescopics they are fake

i made a special bobber seat with bed springs otherwise pavement travel was pretty hard on the spine

Another win for the medical industry... SMH... for that price they should have included airbag suspension.
 
I've considered building mobility vehicles when I retire. What I've seen so far has been undesirable and too expensive.

The only battery I would consider is the EGO brand 56V yard tool packs. They are 14S and every 48V device I've seen will work on 14S.
 
yeah did airbag stuff as well in the form of a car inner tube. that worked ok, but people thought I had piles and kids would steal the tube and throw it over a lamp stamp :oops:

Build your own for off road use, but there's a lot of local regs governing design and use if you want to be legal

fyi

there was a us company formed to make solid 3 wheel 4mph scooters for ex nam vets

ive got one in my back garden - cant find the name just now

called
 
spinningmagnets said:
I've considered building mobility vehicles when I retire. What I've seen so far has been undesirable and too expensive.

The only battery I would consider is the EGO brand 56V yard tool packs. They are 14S and every 48V device I've seen will work on 14S.

I concur it seems like they do planned obsolescence with the sealed lead-acid batteries and long-life durability on the vehicles. Slow and long-lasting like USPS 30 year vehicles
 
Ive remembered now, they were called Rascal

https://www.theseniorlist.com/mobility-scooters/rascal/

i have the 3 wheel version. Very sturdy construction built like a tank. Rare feature is that it will split into manageable parts so you can pack them in the back of a car - truck, stationwagon for transport

will post some pix shortly

q
Electric Mobility, the company that manufactured Rascal scooters, was founded in 1986. For decades, it was one of the leading companies in the mobility industry. At one point, the company even had a contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide full-size four-wheeled scooters to disabled service members. The company initially rose to prominence in part by saturating television airwaves with commercials for products promising to give people with mobility issues the freedom to go anywhere, as well as restoration of the independence that many felt they had lost.
uq
 

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flippy said:
please dont forget 1 BIG aspect with the use of SLA in mobillity scooters:

the weight of the batteries if what gives the scooter its stabillity.

While that's true, the specific density of SLA batteries is not all that different from that of LiFePO4 cells. You would only need to add ballast if you substantially reduce the mass of the cells, or relocate them.

If you use an equal mass of LiFePO4, you'd enjoy vastly increased range, vastly increased cycle life, much lower cost per mile, negligible voltage sag, and much flatter discharge voltage. If your charging and LVC are in working order, you would need only an active balancing circuit for the cells, so power reliability would be equal to that of SLA bricks.

I don't see a downside other than initial cell cost, nor a reason to lard the scooter up with more steel (unless it needs to be reinforced).
 
and euqal mass would be 3~4x the size of a SLA battery. how in the hell do you expect to fit that on a scooter?

pretty sure a slab of steel plate is vastly cheaper.
 
flippy said:
and euqal mass would be 3~4x the size of a SLA battery.

Here's a battery about the size and capacity of the last SLAs I had to deal with. It's 12.2 cubic inches per pound.

Here's a prismatic LiFePO4 cell. it's 16.8 cubic inches per pound.

What's 3 to 4 times 12.2 cubic inches? (Hint: it's not 16.8 cubic inches.)
 
please use normal mesaurements like the rest of the world does. i dont understand freedom units.

ask your drug dealer if metric is right for you. :lol: :roll: :mrgreen:
 
flippy said:
please use normal mesaurements like the rest of the world does. i dont understand freedom units.

ask your drug dealer if metric is right for you. :lol: :roll: :mrgreen:

"World leader" units for the win! What's up ATX! @ Chalo. Even with SLA batteries, I found it rather easy to get the 4 wheeler on two wheels .. which I did on purpose for some action .. at 5mph
 
Dont mess with Texas
 
flippy said:
please use normal mesaurements like the rest of the world does. i dont understand freedom units.

ask your drug dealer if metric is right for you. :lol: :roll: :mrgreen:

Can you not simply ignore the specific units and just compare values? I could have specified cubic angstroms per solar mass, but it's not the units that matter in this case.

Point is, the density difference is about 4:3, and not 3:1 or 4:1.
 
more homework needed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_commercial_battery_types

SLA 75Wh/L - 500cycles
LiFePo4 333Wh/L - 5000cycles
Lion 500Wh/L - 1500cycles

depends on DoD and charge rate

In my case I get SLA 75Ah replaced by LiFePo4 100Ah with 5x life cycles 1/3rd weight for same vol size but 3x cost for my scooter

So do the math (suit gr 6 kid) cost per mile given SLA == 100
 
Chalo said:
Can you not simply ignore the specific units and just compare values? I could have specified cubic angstroms per solar mass, but it's not the units that matter in this case.
Point is, the density difference is about 4:3, and not 3:1 or 4:1.
first compare equal technologies. you are skewing the results to suit your narrative. you dont seem to have a solid grap on the differences between your metrics. first put up the actual comparisons you are using and then we can tell you how wrong you are.

pro tip: check the previously stated wiki link and do the math yourself, it might show you already where you went wrong in your matz.
 
can we leave it at that guys this stag boxing is going nowhere

we need eyes on the prize - better batteries for mobility scooters, there's no substitute for sound science, real life experience matters

the world of mobility scooters is rife with snakeoil salesmen and getting it wrong can be disastrous for a disabled person :warn:
 
Here guys is an example of some valuable User experience on replacing GEL with Lithium

I don’t know if anyone else has done this but just thought I would make a thread about upgrading the batteries in your pavement scooter.

I have a Pride Go-Go Traveller Elite LX but as with other scooters of this type the batteries are very heavy and can be a chore bring them into the house after every use to charge them back up.

I’ve been looking at the scooter that have Li-ion batteries with the like of the CareCo Li-Tech scooters and may well get one of these in future however my Go-Go is a very capable scooter so got me thinking about upgrading the batteries to Li-ion ones.

Having got information about this I was all set to buy two Li-ion batteries to replace the GEL batteries in my scooter. Then I read a few reviews of folk who had already done this and it just left me confused.

The batteries in question are a direct replacement for 12V 12 Ah GEL batteries already in my scooter so advertising guff says to simply swap out your batteries and you then have a Li-ion lightweight scooter. Well not quite? The Li-ion batteries come with a 12V charger and here’s where some confusion sets in.

In one review of these batteries someone said the batteries don’t charge properly and he or she went on to say they take the batteries out of there box and charge each one individually with the 12V charger and went on to say what a pain that was and yes I can imagine it is.

With that in mind I contacted the seller about this problem and the fact they say these batteries are a drop in replacement. There answer was they are indeed drop in replacement but when you order them you have to tell them there for a mobility scooter that has the common wired in series batteries so they then changed the 12V charger to a 24V charger with the standard scooter charging plug and once you change your batteries over you use your new supplied 24V charger just as you did with your old GEL lead acid charger. The two are not compatible so don’t charge your Li-ion battery with your old lead acid charger and visa versa.

One downside to using Li-ion batteries is the chargers are fan assisted and that means while the batteries are being charged there is the noise of a fan that continuously runs until the batteries are charged then the whole lot closes down. So that means it can be a pain charging the batteries in the same room your watching TV but I’ve found it convenient for me to charged them under my stairs and most folk will have somewhere out of the way to charge them not that its that loud, its just annoying.

Reading up on the workings of Li-ion batteries they have electronics built into the battery casing that monitors each cell with-in so as to make sure each individual cell is kept in tip top condition. How this works when charging the batteries the very first time had me worried? In the instruction manual for the charger it says “if the charger LED does not changed from red to green in a reasonable time then turn the charger off as Li-ion batteries can be damaged by constant charging” hence the charger shutting down as noted above when the batteries are charged. Only thing is, it does not say what a reasonable time is. The guff that comes with the batteries says they are 80% or more charged on delivery and can be used right away. With that in mind and the fact the supplied charger is only a cheap 2 Amp version that takes 6 hours to charge a completely flat battery I took it to charge the batteries should take less than 2 hours given that there already at 80% however after 6 hours the charger and its fan are still going.

Worried that I might damage the batteries I stopped the charging and put the batteries on my scooter (more of that below) and took it for a spin then got back home connected the charger again and after a short while the charger turned itself off so a great relief for me this set up was working as it should.

Li-ion batteries do not have to be charged after every use so this means you can just leave them on the scooter until the battery meter on scooter is showing low but to be sure they don’t run flat while out and about its best to recharge them after about 3 or 4 medium distant uses or if your going to go a long way on them. It does them no harm to charge after every use or every five minutes if you wanted so its up to you and how you use your scooter when to charged, oh and also you can store the batteries long term with no need to trickle charged them if your not using them say like during the winter.

Now using the batteries in my scooter for the past week they have given a massive boost to its performance and although these scooters are governed to 4 MPH it seem like its going that little bit faster and going up hill the scooters battery meter shows no sign of the batteries being put under stress whereas my old GEL batteries would shown a deflection on the meter even when they just came off the charger.

I used the scooter for a full week without recharging but not massive distances but around local supermarkets and B&Q and the likes with battery meter still showing full and I only seen one slight deflection of the meter while going up a very steep inclined at a garden centre.

Not had them long enough to say how much further the scooter will go on one charge but with the scooter being about 7 Kilos lighter that alone would give me another mile or so.

That’s the other advantage of these batteries, they only weigh 25% of the GEL batteries so I can quite literally lift my scooter battery box with my little finger, of my good hand. There is a downside to the less weigh though and that it can make the scooter a bit top heavy so be careful taking bends at full speed. That may sound funny at 4 MPH but I can even get my scooter to do what they call “a hand-brake skid” very slight but put her into a tight turn on a supermarket smooth floor while letting go of the wigwam speed controller sends the back wheels in to a slide, a small slide of a few mm ?but shows how these Li-ion batteries preform over standard batteries.

One last thing is the cost of these batteries and there are no doubts about it, they are expensive, or are they?

The batteries are sold on Amazon and E-Bay and each battery cost about £110 so with there being two of them its about £220 including the charger. It’s the same seller from both of the above with Amazon being about £10 dearer and another thing there is no option for VAT exemptions so you have to pay the VAT but to be honest I never asked but there’s no drop down menu to apply VAT exemption.

At first 200 odd quid sounds expensive but apparently Li-ion batteries last up to 4 times or longer than the old lead acid GEL batteries so long term you should save money but it will be awhile before I can confirm that.

Just one more thing going back to the 12V or 24V charger, on Amazon there is only one option to buy one battery or multiples of but this means you will get a 12V charger however on E-Buy the batteries are listed 3 time, one as Amazon and another with discounts for buy more than one battery but both of these option come with the no good to us 12V charger with crocodile clips however there is a listing for two batteries and a 24V charger with the standard charging plug for scooters just for the likes of us and this is the one you need for mobility pavement scooters.


now that's cooking on gas :|
 
G'day folks.
Robin, we do have that scooter here in Aus. It's called a Sportster SE made by Afikim in Israel. IMO, as tough as an Israeli tank! BTW, the front suspension is real. The forks slide through the fork crown & the handlebars move up & down with them. Weird, but it works. Those rear wheels are 14", front 10".

AussieRider
 
Indeed they are tough and very well made, once you have big wheels you never go back
Thats a plus, real tele forks :eek:

Now for the bummer, the front wheel cable brake was only intended as a parking brake as it relies on dynamic braking. This works till the last second or so when you are cruising to a halt, but there is a (potential lethal) period till the magnetic brake kicks in when you continue freewheeling forward (I think there may be and auto brake if you start to roll backwards and it goes into error mode and stops dead requiring restart with key.

Anyway IMHO you really need this cable brake to work and it doesnt (on mine), so you dont wheel into a pile of food cans in a supermarket, or worse, roll out into the road traffic down a drop kerb

Unchecked the cart can roll on 3ft further before stopping dead.

For some inexplicable reason Afikim put an incredibly strong return spring between to brake shoes of the front drum brake, so much so that it negates you best efforst to clamp the brake. My solution (50p) was to detach this horseshoe spring and replace it with a couple of light extension coil springs just sufficient to pull the shoes back on brake release. This worked a treat and I can easily lock up the front wheel to assist stopping at low speed - wouldnt be without it. :p


and you really need that inner tube for your back
 
Robint said:
Here guys is an example of some valuable User experience on replacing GEL with Lithium

some BS

now that's cooking on gas :|

that whole thing is simply not relevant. it does not matter in the slightest how good alternatives for SLA actually is for regular mobillity scooters.

here are the key factors:

1: in the design you MUST have enough weight to keep it from tipping over. adding aritifical weight reduces profit.

2: higher end batteries (aka: anything exept SLA) cost money and thus reduce profit.

3: the thing needs to be built as cheaply as -legally- possibe.

4: the insurance companies usually pay for them.


so no, SLA will be the standard for many more years to come. no company will put lithium in their scooters simply because the current pricing is already jacked up to the artifical limits that insurance companies pay for them. if the insruance companies reduce the limit the price of the scooter comes down accordingly.
no scooter maker is going to put in a WAY more expensive battery, add a big steel plate to compensate for the weight loss and then LOSE even more money by NOT having to sell you criminally overpriced replacement batteries.
 
I think for the benefit of board members it would be polite for contributors to disclose their bona fides here before posting
(perhaps under your profile footnote)

eg declare you are a mobility scooter user, how long, what rig(s) do you use, shopping or pavement type (ie class 1 4mph or class 3 8mph)

Personally I am hoping for informed opinion on the technology from other categories, Ebikes, RC etc

SLA;s are the traditional use and will continue for years (exception, extreme light weight foldables for use in air travel)
 
forgot 1 major disclaimer:

if you have replaced batteries on a scooter that your insurance paid for with lithium for example and reduced the weight by 50% or more they will simply not pay out any damages and costs that come from your falling over. some will even refuse if you replace the batteries with "off-brand" replacements for example. anything they can find to refuse coverage is fair game.

i rekon many single payer healthcare countries will not face this problem but in 2nd/3rd world countries like america you are royally frocked if this happens.
 
flippy said:
I rekon many single payer healthcare countries will not face this problem but in 2nd/3rd world countries like america you are royally frocked if this happens.

I'd like you to refrain from insulting the country most of our users live in like that in the future. Not necessary to go there in a problem solving thread.
 
flippy said:
Chalo said:
Point is, the density difference is about 4:3, and not 3:1 or 4:1.
first compare equal technologies. you are skewing the results to suit your narrative.
How? I linked to cells which were just a normal 35Ah SLA and the first prismatic LFP I found that looked like it it could pack into a similar shape. I didn't go shopping; I took the first examples that I found with dimensions and weights. The only selection I did was to avoid comparing cylindrical with prismatic for density purposes.

first put up the actual comparisons you are using and then we can tell you how wrong you are.

Embedded links are still there in the above, unedited post. Have a look and do the calculations yourself, if that makes you trust them more.

I was telling you what I already know from working with LiFePO4 packs, which is that they're heavy like other batteries. They contain a lot more juice than SLAs, but if you stuff a compartment full of LiFePO4 prismatics it will weigh close to the same as the compartment full of SLA-- about 3/4 as much according to the first back-of-the-envelope numbers I did. I think your "three or four times" ratio must be comparing volumetric energy density rather than physical density.
 
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