Mercury Regatta mobility scooter?

There are moments. Like when my sister rings saying she can't get hold of Mum (she's got a panic button and we the first responders on the list) so it's us (who didn't choose to move away from the area) that have to track her down ... gone round her friends to play Rummykub and forgot to tell anyone or take her mobile with her. ;-(

Or we get a call from the Careline saying she has pressed the button but isn't responding to the caller base ... so we rush round and she's in the garden, under the sunshade happily potting up some plants but with her hearing aids out and the panic fob on the chair cushion ... ;-(

But hey, better be safe etc ... ;-)

That was part of the appeal of this one over the TGA Ultralite. Whilst it performed very well on hard paths, compact stony towpaths and dry / short grass, because it was front wheel drive, with most of the weight over the rear wheels and fairly narrow tyres, you could get a bit of wheel spin on the slippery bits.

A quick look at the spec for your mums scoot shows it as ~50cm wide whereas the Regatta is 67. Given that the sitting position is similar on most of them, that extra track can make a big difference.

Oh. Saves having a recoiling dog lead on it as we did when daughter got her first Motorcrosser. ;-)

And that's part of the compromise you generally have to accept with something so compact.

The thing is, everything is fine till it isn't, like when you daughter does a 'You've been framed', full throttle though a hedge / shed (she never did btw) or yer Mum hits the throttle thinking it's a brake and drives straight into the road (luckily I was ready for her) where those sorts of things are no longer you being over cautious.

I've tested this electric brake on 24V and it appears it's lost it's 'ooompf'. The coil resistance is around 45 ohms that from the various Youtube videos looks to be right but it just doesn't seem able to create enough magnetism to draw the base plate in (it looks like it should come in with a 'snap').

I'm tempted to buy one in from the Far east for £29 + £15 p&p but knowing my luck, will get stuck for the duty collection (8 quid for 2 quid duty etc). Or you can find identical second hand ones for ~£65?

Cheers, T i m

are they not cheaply available used on ebay?

Phone for a taxi. For an 8mph buggy you'd need a van & a driver willing to load it.

NT

I always wondered what would happen with those machines if an output transistor failed. Wouldn't it suddenly apply full power uncontrollably?

NT

I wondered the same and there is no emergency cuttoff button (on the ones I've played with anyway).

I guess the idea is that with a top speed of 8mph you aren't going to go *too* fast but even that to a dead stop wouldn't be good for many (older especially) people?

It's possible the 'ignition switch' drives another transistor or power relay?

One thing that did surprise me when the Mrs first rode the scooter round to Mums as it seems that the single (rear) brake isn't interlocked with the throttle and you *can* have the throttle on and the rear brake. ;-(

Now, there could be a reason it isn't ... like what if the brake did cut out the throttle, you came to a halt with the throttle sill on full and then you released the brake? You would have to design it so that it had to see the throttle back to zero before it enabled power again?

Some motorbikes / cars won't start unless you have you foot / hand operating one of the controls and on some motorbikes they will cut the ignition as soon as you try to take the gear out of neutral and still have the side stand down.

Cheers, T i m

Not sure how much help that would be if the nearest road was over 1/2 mile away (if you are in a big park area) and the person couldn't walk that far? [1]

Or a Son driving what was his (/Dads) Meriva. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Possibly, depending on how you see 'cheaply'.

If it had failed at 13 months on a 3 grand buggy then £100 or even £300 for a new one (these bastards are a ripoff) could be considered 'cheap'.

If you only paid £200 for the buggy then even £65 for a second hand one is quite expensive?

Now, the good thing is that I believe it will run without the brake fitted (it will need to be in the loom because it kills the throttle if the override lever (microswitch) is actuated and the brake actuator coil (45 ohms) out of circuit, but I don't think it can detect it's not mechanically installed) so we (not Mum) can give it a run (many times round the block) to check all is well again before sourcing a replacement.

The is a chance you could buy a complete damaged scooter privately for less than the cost of the part. The st//dealers tend to break them and sell them on eBay.

I have seen this model complete and running sold on eBay for ~£400 so if we get a known working one for less than that I guess we could count that as a result?

Cheers, T i m

Depends what your time's worth.

Re brakes, yes they can work without a brake. But it would be a concern to operate one like that outside of testing it somewhere safe.

From the very few I've seen it seems mob scooters have all sorts of design oddities. Steering that's not Ackermann, brakes that can be deactivated by the user with no marking, no warning and no obvious effect on operation, th at insane 5 wheel setup etc. Reminds me of the somewhat famous 1951 Hoffman n car.

NT

Well in cases like this its more a function of S&G's and learning about the workings of Mobility Scooters. Also batteries and electronics so it's more of a hobby than a chore.

An 'automatic electric brake', it will still have an mechanical brake etc.

Quite (given the above). It will be interesting to see how much natural overrun braking there is or if there is an electrical brake (shorting the motor rather than an electro-mechanical-physical brake).

Oh indeed.

;-)

Oooerr!

Initially I thought it might be like my Messerschmitt KR200 but then I saw it was *nothing* like that (wheelbase longer than the track, front wheel steering, sliding windows, easy to get in and out of etc).

That Hoffmann looks like it was 'designed' by Crazy Jim, not wanting to conform to any standards and not realising how undesirable that is?

Cheers, T i m

somewhere safe.

r with no marking, no warning and no obvious effect on operation, that insa ne 5 wheel setup etc.

The kabinenroller was one of the best designed microcars. The Hoffmann is t ruly the worst ever found. What Jason doesn't address there is the steering crisis - I won't call it a problem. Turning the steering wheel moves the c ar sideways as you saw on the vid. What this means is that once you go full lock, it becomes physically impossible to turn the steering wheel back to straight, centripetal force from cornering keeps it locked. So in real worl d driving the thing is strongly prone to going out of control on corners. I suspect after a couple of drives it was never used again.

NT

It was (is) pretty good. At least if you drove to the end the garage you could still get out of it, unlike many 'other' microcars of the time. ;-)

No, I got that from the video!

I can see it 'flopped' onto one lock or another, horrible. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

What was interesting with tonight's electric-brake-less test run was how much motor braking it's got, making me think the only role the electromagnetic brake provides is a parking brake?

I couldn't tell if the overrun braking was just because the transmission was spinning the motor or that there was some motor braking (by shorting it out when in 'neutral').

On a footbridge with ramp, the scooter would freewheel down at about

Cheers, T i m

All scooters should stop dead when you let go of the controls. No over run.

Bill

Good ones are few and far between.

Bill

I guess you don't actually mean 'stop dead' Bill as that's likely to give the rider quite a shock (like riding into a brick wall) or lock the braked wheel(s)[1] up so it must be a level of 'rapid deceleration' of some sort?

So, if a 135kg passenger on a 100kg scooter (Regatta Mercury with 21st rider) so over 1/4 of a tonne total) is running at 8mph on a flat hard surface, how far do you think most scooters might travel, 1m, .5m, .25m or do you really mean 0m? What about on grass / gravel?

In the case of the TGA Ultralight (trike) the driven wheel is the single at the front and so that's the one that would be braked. ;-(

I don't know if the electromagnetic brakes have a level of 'slip' so that they don't *instantly* lock the motor as I'm not sure doing so would be good for the brake, motor or transmission ... but if it brought it to a 'rapid halt', that would result in much more actual braking at the wheels because of the gearing (like a transmission brake on the propshaft of a 4X4).

It would make sense that it did slip to some level as that would bring the scooter to a 'rapid' but not (attempt to bring it to an) instant halt.

I will be interested to do the experiment when we get the replacement brake. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

And because they are associated with 'medical' (and I don't think you can even say 'low volumes' these days, all be it may not be 'mass production'), they seem expensive, as are the spares (therefore), even second hand ones.

It's not because the parts are expensive, it's because they can and they know in many cases the people rely on these things for their freedom and will pay?

You can see how fast the depreciate to get an idea of their true value.

A pair of batteries cost £200, £200 for motor and transaxle and wheels, a speed controller maybe £100, seat £50, another £100 for all the ancillaries (switches, lights, knobs and grips etc), and say another £350 for the chassis (often only 1" sq tubing) and bodywork and you are only at ~£1000 (and I think they might all be way over estimated if bought at trade / bulk prices). So that leaves £2000 for assembly costs, profit (manufacturer, distributor, retailer) minus any warrantee etc?

You an buy a Dacia Sandero for £6,995 (list price new) and that has a million more bits and steel than a scooter!

Cheers, T i m

The electromagnetic brake covers: braking on steep slopes secondary braking mechanism in case the primary fails parking/mounting/demounting brake

NT

'Stopping and staying stopped' on steep slopes, as this is a digital thing?

The primary braking in this case is the motor overrun, then the electric brake (not sure if it cuts in instantly or has a delay by the controller, I believe the latter).

Now that it is 100% because I see it more of a parking than stopping brake etc.

If you let off from full (Slow) speed it comes to a halt (on the flat) in about 500mm and that's *only* whatever breaking effort is applied by the motor (electric brake disconnected, hand brake not used). Now, the motor could well be shorted (or low resistance) by the controller under those circumstances and hence providing quite a lot of braking force in any case. It wouldn't hold it on a slope of course.

The scooter his do one ~5 mile trip (on a very hot day) and with a bit of 'off road use without an issue and only using 2 of the 8/10 'fuel gauge' bars.

The PO reported very low range so the chances are this electric brake has been faulty (and getting worse) for a while. The worry is that whilst the Rhino controller is supposed to be very well equipped with all sorts of overload condition overrides, it (and the motor) may well have been run hot for a while.

Anyway, on the last trip it was fine from here to Mums (.5 mile) but apparently hesitated once soon after Mum got on it and then cut out completely once in the local park (about 1 mile total that trip). Everything was live, including the reversing indicator, just no power to the motor. I got Mum off the scooter (she can walk short distances / stand ok) I removed the seat and motor / battery bay cover but couldn't see anything loose. I disconnected the main 24V battery connector and re-connected and then the motor 'pulsed' in response to the throttle and about 30 seconds later it started working again.

It was fine round the park and back to Mums ... and again from hers to ours and then seemed to cut out up to the crossover here where it seemed to cut out again (same symptoms).

Not been back to it since to see if the fault has cleared itself.

I now have access to the Rhino speed-controller installation, wiring and configuration manual and so if the fault has remained I have a better chance of diagnosing what and where.

I can get a brand new electric brake from Taiwan for £50 plus any import duties / tax or a second hand one here for £65. One of the things I'm not sure about is if the faulty electric brake, fitted electrically but not mechanically functional is still having an impact on the situation. If there was something wrong (especially intermittent) with the electric brake coil ... where it was going open or short circuit, those I believe are picked up as fault conditions and would inhibit the controller (5 flashes of the fault light or 1).

The dichotomy is if it isn't to do with the brake but say the controller itself, we don't want to be spending any more 'real' money on it, over say a newer s/h or new one (not that they would be immune from issues either of course).

The coil measured 40 ohms that I believe is about right so I wonder if I could replace it with a 40 ohm (12W, the rating marked on the brake) resistor?

Cheers, T i m

Just found this in the speed controller configuration:

"The Parkbrake Delay parameter sets the delay between zero speed demand (after the scooter has decelerated and stopped) and the moment that the parkbrakes are engaged.

The correct value of this parameter is dependent on the mechanics of the parkbrake that is used on the scooter. The delay must be longer for fast acting parkbrakes.

If the value of Parkbrake Delay is set too high, there may be too much rollback when stopping on a slope. If the value is set too low, the scooter may stop too abruptly."

So it looks like it works as I imagined it. It uses the back emf of the motor to form as self braking effect / or just the regen braking or just the fact that you would have to spin the motor quite fast via the transmission.

Cheers, T i m