I saw this wheelchair at a local salvage house. I thought I could use it as a static prop in my yard haunt, but it was a bit expensive. I passed on it that trip but kept thinking about it.
One night I was watching Jimmy Diresta videos on YouTube and in the side bar was a video for a remote control lawn mower. the light went off and I knew what I could do with that old wheelchair.
Lucky for me Fantastic Mr. Finds still had the wheelchair. I bundled a few items together and got a little better deal and took it home.
Ebay had the DC gear motors off a Jazzy, robot shop had the motor controller, and a local hobby shop had the radio and receiver. the motors are usually 24V so I bought 2 Duracell batteries to wire in series and started cutting and welding. I decided to go direct drive but the motor shafts were too big for the hubs. I had to grind them down on a Beaumont sander while running the motors to get an even diameter. I had to weld the bearing races to the hub to keep it from spinning and drill a hole through the hub and shaft to keep the shaft from spinning. the motors were so torquey they kept breaking the screw I had put through it. I drilled it larger and used an Allen wrench and it snapped too. finally I bought a grade 8 bolt and that did the trick.
Wiring the motor controller was self explanatory and hooking up the radio was easy just following the instructions. the youtube videos were very helpful too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oBZGzPNQoE
this was the most informative video.
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