I know where you're coming from when it comes to staying in bed and fighting problems with your chair.
My 14 1/2-year-old Invacare Arrow/with a peach tree driving system finally broke down two weeks ago and I am now forced to use the new Permobile C350 with a Magitek. I wrote about this before, but I'm having trouble with the tilting mechanism. It's not the Peachtree in this case, it's the interface and Permobile has written a program for it, but it's now in quality assurance. Who knows when I'm going to get the program. All I know is I am able to tilt the chair back most of the time, albeit painfully slow. Getting the vendor here is really difficult. He's the only one covering the whole area and it takes forever to get him to either come out to my house or to meet up with him at the hospital. I'm hopeful I'll be older meet up with him next week, but right now I'm having a hell of a time operating this chair. Does anyone else have a Magitek? I can't seem to get it to operate the same every time. One time it pulls to the right. The next time it doesn't. Then it doesn't want to turn effectively to the left. There is also an issue with the acceleration of the chair. It goes to top speed much too fast. It's so difficult control but I'm having a hard time getting up to my desk without running my chest into it. Well, I'm going to try to call the Magitek technicians on Monday to see if they have any advice. But I don't think I can get anything done until it makes sure the programming on the Permobile is correct. By independents has definitely suffered as a result of the switch to the new chair too quickly. Although, if I told you how long I have had this chair, you guys would just about drop a brick in your pants. They needed to get this thing ready to go quite a long time ago. The list of people at fault is too long. Sorry for venting, but sometimes it does make me feel a little better. Then again, this really isn't one of those times. :-) Quadius On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:22 PM, Monty <[email protected]> wrote: > I am somewhat of a dilemma on deciding in regards to my new power chair > late this year. I am currently in my third Invacare power chair rearwheel > drive with gearless brushless motors. Living in northern Indiana with the > wildest weather extremes and will not take a little snow caused me to stay > home unless it's to deep. My last chair before this one electronics seem to > be bulletproof, accepting bone jarring miles of travel sometimes over 10 > miles in a single day! Six months in the ownership I started experiencing > mysterious electronic problems which manufacture still hasn't figured out in > the last four years.the chair would just stall and had to be manually turned > off and turned back on by somebody else other than myself. After countless > calls to my service center and the manufacturer resulting in no definitive > answers! This situation truly got scary one time while crossing some > railroad tracks and it stalled out just about the time the crossing arms > were > coming down. Looking over my shoulder with a westbound train only blocks > away, heaven help me there was a state trooper who was just behind me to get > me rolling again! Every piece of electronic box or parts have been replaced > more than one time without solving the problem. After changing my service > center they were able to wire in a non-Invacare reset switch so I can power > my chair on an off without any assistance. I am 3/4c level injury and > extremely active outside of my four walls. I volunteer at an elementary > school five days a week and have a paying job at target on Saturdays. So > having a dependable and reliable chair is absolutely key to my lifestyle. I > have lost count on how many days that I have spent in bed because of this > hunk of junk chair and will never own another Invacare chair again. Having > the combination of long-distance travel and excessive amount of torque when > necessary to climb over unknown obstacles. Potholes in this community are > everybody's springtime favorite, besides those old famous cobblestone road > that still exist out there. I have a sip and puff control, with the tilt > system that seems to be a good combination for my 6 foot 175 pound body. > Right now I'm going through another redesign on my leg rest still not strong > enough to resist all of those things I seem to be bouncing off. Having about > 10 hours or so up in my chair on a daily basis helps to keep me healthy both > mentally and physically. Yes I've had issues with breakdown a time or two > but that's just part of being disabled. Even with my worse cases of > pneumonia getting up in the chair helped to speed up my recovery time. I > don't mind taking extra medication to help out fighting against those sickly > little bugs and absolutely swear by taking zinc once a day. Haven't a single > day of school because of and think that says something? Sorry this post is > so long but just been watching for the last few days of everybody's > concerns and issues. Take care my dear friends > > > > >
