taken the plunge BUT:::: wheelchair battery charging ??

[james pond]

having finally taken the plunge and blown our shoestring budget on a talbot highwayman ; wifey who is a wheelchair user has asked a perplexing question. how will she be able to charge her 24v batteries. on hookup is o.k. but we will be wilding most of the time. advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Rubbertramp]

Well, some generators are pretty compact and quiet these days. Or I do believe you can wire 12 volt batteries in tandem to become 24 volt.....I may be wrong.

 

[n brown]

i'm not hundred percent on this but pretty sure bumping up from 12 to 24v is easier than the other way round

 

[bigmillie]

This looks to fit the bill :cheers:

12 Volt DC Input Battery Chargers for Lead Acid and SLA Batteries, for charging wheelchairs in vehicles

Four stage intelligent charger with 10 VDC to 15 VDC input to charge 24 volt (2x12 volt in series) lead acid batteries, (flooded, VRLA, Gel, or AGM.) Charge a wheel chair, bicycle or scooter in your car or van.

 

[Deleted member 3011]

Using the above DC-DC charger will do the job, but you will have to watch how you are supplying the charger because unless you have plenty of solar to keep the habitation batteries full, you will soon run out of power. If the wheelchair battery is say 40 AH and you run it down to 1/4 full, then it will take close to 50Ah out of your house battery to charge it fully.
If at all possible, charge the wheelchair battery from the alternator (using the DC-DC charger) when you are driving, and if necessary, give it a topup charge from the habitation battery after lunch when the solar has nearly topped it up.

You might find that while the battery runs down quickly when at home, in and around the MH the distances are much less and the battery might last a lot longer so need charging less often.

 

[BrianG]

I charge my electric bike by plugging it's normal charger into my onboard inverter while driving. The bike is 36volt but of course probably no where near the capacity of wheelchair batteries. Do you know what capacity they are in Ampere/Hours?

 

[wildman]

Wilding presumes a certain amount of power indepenance, we have 3 x 110 amp/hr batteries and 2 x 80W solar panels yet during a typical summer in the UK at the start and end of the season we do struggle to get 6 hours TV every night, (that is 30 amp/hrs a day). what you really need to know is how much power normal use of the chair consumes. Wilding one assumes you drive every day so the best answer is to uprate your alternator to one that can cope with the increased charging requirements and carry a generator. Bearing in mind that at home the chair is plugged in and charging all night long a 4 stage charge would be essential to enable charging in as short a period as possible. It can be done I know of plenty of wheelchair users who manage without a problem but they have had to keep trying different options to solve the problem. Mostly they do it via lots of solar power and leisure batteries backed up by a generator or use sites with EHU.

 

[fishy & Nina]

Have a look at this site - based in UK and has a phone number.................
ian


Cubeblue Limited

 

[james pond]

thanks all for the battery info, BUT ??

cheers to all who took the time , alas wifey has the knack of stating the obvious; how do i actually do it? at home we plug the charger into the wall, but wilding there is no 240v supply ; how do we aquire suitable electrons. we must sound quite dumb i know , electrically challenged i'd prefer !

 

[Admin]

1) An inverter run from leisure batteries.
2) generator (not good at night)
3) Solar panels, with 24v charging and carry spare wheel chair batteries? (charge while the sun is shining then swap each day)

The problem is that your van batteries would be quite drained after charging the wheel chair, so you would have to refill them with solar or generator.