[QUAD-L] Re: New chair

[Martin T Brown]

Thanks for your best wishes for my new venture, the reason I started this is because that there are no wheelchair manufacturers in South Africa, we will be the first to locally produced an electrical wheelchair.  All the chair currently available in South Africa are imported, thus repairs is a major issue, and with the exchange-rate and the greed of dealers prices are high.   Dan   thanks mate I noticed that a position my battery boxes too far backwards, this may my front-end a bit Lite, the casters we use are pneumatic 260 x 85 with a 300 kg weight limit it managed quite well on off-road conditions and... but I did adjust the positioning of the battery boxes which gave me a more controllable steering.   Shahidul   Ah my friend I'm glad you finally got your chair is opens so much more doors to independence... I only received my first power chair 4 years after my injury thus I really appreciated that new-found independence.  You are right about the steering mechanism of a frontwheel driven wheelchair it is much more sensitive and less forgiving than that of a midwheel or rearwheel driven wheelchair, so high level quadriplegic who don't have fine control motor skills are usually not advised to purchase a frontwheel driven wheelchair.   Mark   Thanks Mark I wish I could send you a chair so you can burn some rubber and spin around some mud holes, but luckily I live in Africa which is a pretty rugged country and we are having fun, so come join us you are invited.   Lester   Our chair can accommodate power-tilt-in-space and (or) power reclining backrest... the cost we are still in the process of calculating... this quite a few things that had to be taken into account... we are still in the prototype phase so I'm still refining manufacturing costs.   Wheelie   Thanks for the best wishes friend... you don't know how glad I am that I live in a country whose laws are not based on US laws, so suing a company for spilling your own hot coffee on your lap will be laughed at.  The only liability I am held responsible for is what happens on my working premises and I have a 20 million public liability insurance that covers that, concerning the FDA we have a similar organisation known as South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) by which my chair must be approved and luckily that only takes about three months and not seven years.  The intensity of the tests is quite rigorous and they will require about three chairs which is being tested till breaking point.  According to me the FDA has hampered many a dreams and also spinal cord research.   To all I'm also happy to announce that an investor has invested a half million into our company. << Well I did it, designed and made my own power chair ........ we busy driving the hell out of the barebone prototype. So you might think how do you drive the hell out of a power chair ...........well configure the speed to 90% the give it to a 14 year old and say "try and break it" http://www.radicalmobility.com/prototype.jpg so what you guys think? There is no fancy trimmings to the prototype ...... we are trying to wreck it. -- Martin T. Brown Radical Mobility cc (Office) +27 11 6646069 (fax) +27 11 9553743 (Cell) 082 500 9406 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.radicalmobility.com "Engineering Mobility for Accessibility"