electric shortage and Acorn stairlift - what happens to stair lift when power is out

It all depends on the size of the battery. The stair lift is made to sell and make a profit for the company. The smaller the battery,the more profit.

Where I worked there were battery powered pallet trucks. They would haul a man and a load of 800 pounds for about 8 hours. The battery did weigh in at about 500 pounds and was a lead acid type. I am sure there is better batteries now as those were being made in the 1970's.

Scooters have 32Ah batteries in them. MOST chairlifts use 7.2 to 10 aH batteries, while some may use 12-16 .Some use NiCads. An Acorn lift WILL allow a down trip on a depleted battery (as it requires almost no power to decend) According to the manuals, an unloaded lift should draw 7 to 7.5 amps going up and less than 3.5 amps decending. Load will increase power draw but the battery is fused at 20 amps.

The batteries used are rated at 7.2AH at 20 amp draw - so minimum of

This means you are pretty safe to expect AT LEAST 5 or 6 round trips

-and theoretically up to 10.

Still in common use today. Nickel and lithium batteries are lighter and smaller (and more fragile and MUCH more expensive -) and lift trucks require ballast anyway, so light weight is, if anything, a disadvantage.

_some_ do. There are quite a few different models by numerous manufacturers (plus a gazillion number of names they go under).

The last one I worked on had inserts/holders for two

(Don't get me started on how much outright lying there is on those labels).

Note that depending on the scooter design, different units can get you a lot more, or less, range than the others using the same types of batteries.

Bit by bit we're transitioning to LiFe batteries, which give a _lot_ more power and weigh a mere fraction of the lead acids. But they're a hell of a lot more expensive, and require rewiring the charging circuits.

Common fork lift trucks do need the ballast. The lift trucks we had did not. They only lifted the load a few inches off the floor. The load forks had wheels on them so they were suported and not the teeter tot arangement like a fork lift that raises the load many feet above ground.

The driver was in front and drove them like a truck with the load behind. All wheels stayed on the floor at all time. A light weight battery would be good for those lifts. They were more like a pallet jack with a motor and seat.

MOST use U1 batteries (or ATX4L) which are typically 32 Ah. Some use even larger ones (mostly "outdoor" 4 wheeled units like the Pride Quantum 4000 or "planetary" steering power chairs) The Quantum 4000 uses 75Ah D75S batteries.. Some use smaller batteries, but not too many of the "commercial duty" units with shopping carts attached. . Some (mostly portable "mobi" style like the Pride Go-Go) use the 18Ah D18S style, and some use the 12 Ah D12S battery - most using the D12s can also use the D18 and vise versa. I just replaced a pair of U1s on a pride 2000 4 wheel scooter earlier this week. A friend's power chair used to have 108Ah batteries - - - .

Basically a "tow-motor" or light duty tug then.

One was similar to this except it had seat .

This is similar to the later ones.