Wheelchair Domination, Complete

This isn’t your grandpa’s wheelchair, this is the future.

When I introduced Lively, I ran her at minimum speed, because I knew I needed to get used to her movement.  And on day one I wanted to install my Lamborghini shift knob.  The real trouble was that we discovered her footplate wouldn’t fit properly in the van.  The other issue was, it was bloody cold!

So I waited until a warm day to go top speed, and… She was slow.  The fastest setting was the slowest speed.

So Jack, who built her, and I walked through all the permutations of what could have gone wrong from his testing it out in South Carolina to me getting it here.  We tried new scripts, we installed a better voltage regulator, etc.  Well, Andy, Joey, Andrew, my Jack, and Kate actually worked on the chair itself while Jack and I conversed over email and text.  Management.

All the improvements, including a fold-up footplate, thank you Andy, and she still was slow. So the last ditch effort was checking the joystick, and Joey took it apart and made sure it fits correctly.  Then, a calibration test.  If you remember, I can still use computers.  So we hooked Lively up to my computer and found that the range of motion for the joystick was off by about two thirds.  The only way to test is to recalibrate, which I know how to do.

The following video demonstrates the post-calibration effects, slowest and highest speed settings.  Lively is in neutral.

You know what the problem was?  When I installed my joystick knob, I may have pushed in something that caused less x and y axis movement.  My own darn fault!  So, now I knew we could reach maximum speed.  But it was so darn cold, I couldn’t do speed runs.

This week is the Formula 1 testing, where the cars go out and we see that which they are capable.  Well, ever since ALS, I’ve been fascinated with F1, therefore it was time.  And BOY HOWDY!

I’m not going to say I’m the fastest wheelchair in the world, but the fastest on the east coast, yeah!

So, thanks to Jack, and Timmy, and Lynn, and Tim, and Henry, and Scott, and the Zedeks, and Andy, and Joey, and Andrew,  and Jack,  and Kate!  You have made the greatest EV known to man.

I’m going to make a whole page about Lively, the build and specs.  If anyone wants to get publicity around town or online, sponsorship space is available!  And if you want to talk to Williams or Ferrari or Lamborghini or Audi or Jaguar or Lotus or something, maybe the Zeisel wheelchair company, maybe they want to slap some sponsorship, I still am open minded!  Even though Jack built it without them…  But I am open minded!

In the meantime….

NEEOWWWW!