Any advice? An Aged Relative needs one, and my Dad's old one is getting a bit tired after passing through a few users.
Looking for something with enough range to reach Morrisons and carry some shopping, so larger wheels. Car portability isn't a thing. What's the deal with batteries these days? lead or lithium?
Thanks for any recommendations on features, brands, or dealers in SW England: Taunton, Bridgwater, maybe Bristol.
Worth watching eBay - we got 3 little ones over 2 years for less than £100 each.
My nearest Morrisons is about seven miles away so you would need a fairly hefty scooter to do that on one charge.
:)
Most of the road-capable ones will do 20 miles.
Bill
We've had four Pride machines, all different, and all of them good.
The main thing is, don't buy from a local disability shop. They charge far too much. Buy on line. The same applies to batteries.
These are excellent machines.
dies (I suppose that's the story of a scooter's life) whenever I asked he told me it it was left on charge, after he died I checked it in the garage, yes it was plugged in with a flashing green light on the charger, but when I tried to move it absolutely nothing ...
As far as I can make out it's around £300 for a pair of NP100-12 batteries, didn't find much interest in it a few months ago, is it worth spending the money on batteries or find someone to take it away and chance it?
How are they on hills?
The large ones are limited only by adhesion to the road. They are often driven up steep ramps to get into a trailer or van. In hilly country regenerative braking helps a little bit with charge life.
Bill
You don't have to put 100Ah batteries in it. 75Ah ones will do, if the range isn't critical. If all you want to do is make it run so you can sell it a pair of 75Ah batteries would cost about £160.
By the way these machines can be dangerous if you aren't careful. They are powerful.
Bill
don't tell us what range you need, or how level the town is.
they all do
?
they use lead acid.
don't give us any clues what you want. The choice between 4mph & 8mph class is decided by the law in most cases
they can go much faster
On 07/06/2022 19:45, williamwright wrote: ...
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The same applies to just about anything a disability shop sells. I bought my late partner a three wheel walker for half the price online.
Thank you. It's very hilly around here, and long covid is making climbing hills much harder than it used to be.
In fact the same thing applies to all shops. The overheads of paying business rates in a town centre , the costs of actually driving there, are making the high street totally pointless as a place to actually sell anything over and above high priced s*it coffee.
Even basic clothes are available on 'sale or return' basis if they don't fit.
Even specialised stuff like machine tools that you used to go to a hardware store for or the builders merchants is cheaper online.
And yu can buy stuff from all over the world. (Execpt the EU, of course, who are sulking and wont sell to Britain).
One thing nobody seems to mention is that these vehicles (can be relatively big) need garaging. son got one from the local RDA at least fifteen years ago.
The main problem was we had no garage for it so it had to be brought into the house . To do this we had to take the batteries out and finagle the main part of it through the front door turning what should have been a trivial routine into one that was extra long.
There are smaller versions for IN the house such as powered wheelchairs but anything meant for pavement/road use and able to carry a sensible amount of shopping really needs to be kept outside . Wee shed would do (it doesn't have to be a full garage) as long as it is watertight and (preferably) has (at least) access to power.
His "buggy" used lead acids.
But it seems lithium is the way to go nowadays the higher cost of Lithium is of very little consideration for mobility scooters They are much more expensive than lead acids but they last up to ten times longer and add about 40% (in range) to lead acids.
I use LiPo a lot in RC cars (I don't use them in boats preferring the weight of the ballast to be part of the power system)and it seems there main drawback is in safety ,they burst into flames at the drop of a hat, usually when being charged.
I am fairly sure though that mobility scooter batteries do not use lithim polymer batteries but some other form of Lithium battery such as LiFe etc. This should mean the batteries do not require as much supervision as LiPo which do not 'like' being stored with no charge. LiPo however seems to be the way to go for 'burst power' not really required for mobility scooters
Just one data point - some bus companies will take the smaller ones (class 2 IIRC) but not the bigger ones.
And IIRC you need to get a permit which involves demonstrating competence in manoeuvring.
There are ones available with Lithium Ion, but there are airline restrictions on the largest of the battery packs.
If the owner of the device, drives it regularly, there's a better chance the battery packs (whatever type used) will be maintained properly. Leaving any device in a shed for long long periods of time, does not end well for the pack.
If a person isn't really sure whether they would use such a device, they should test first with something, to see whether it is too nerve wracking.
To give some idea what kind of people drive such things, a local "character" in one of the neighbourhoods here, he's driving along the sidewalk, and comes to an intersection with a light. Well, the light is not changing instantly after he pressed the pedestrian button. He darts down the road about 70 feet, hangs an immediate turn out onto the street into live traffic with no warning at all. The first car slams on the brakes and stops in time, to not hit the fool. A second car is unable to stop in time, and rear-ends the first car. The fool drives off down the sidewalk and does not stick around to talk to police about the accident he has caused.
Don't give one of those things to a person who has "less marbles" than that example :-/
Another thing about mobility devices, is urban surfaces are seldom pool-table-smooth. And some individuals will not be able to handle all the poor road surface plans, the potholes, lack of safety markings, and so on. You simply cannot use those things in winter here, but... YMMV. This could mean a mobility scooter is a primary device, but you need a backup plan for when conditions are too poor for such things.
The owner should check weather conditions before leaving the house. We've had a few wild weather events, where you would not want to be in open country when they hit. (People died.) And the weather warnings are not always certain enough, for safe travel.
Paul
You'll run into battery life problems if you keep then somewhere unheated.
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