Mountain Wheelchair Build Log

The official build log for the Mountain Wheelchair. Please enter your email address to subscribe for updates →

Example of a perfect TIG welded bead

Learning to TIG weld

Whenever I’m sat at home and I turn on the TV, my first port of call is almost always The Discovery Chanel. Many of their shows [...]
Mountain Wheelchair Rocker Bogie Platform

Pre-Made Trials Bike Forks

Over Christmas I spent considerable time looking at the properties of different metals to find which is suitable for building the [...]
Full-Size PVC Mountain Wheelchair Model

Full Size Wheelchair Model

When designing the wheelchair it was important that Ada found it comfortable to sit in for hours on end. With this in mind I made a PVC [...]
Getting the correct dimensions for the mountain wheelchair

“Comfiest Seat Ever”

…is what Ada said when she sat on it :) Here it is, the first full size prototype of the wheelchair seat: I realise that it looks [...]
mountain wheelchair mtb0000

Fat Wheels are Too Fat!

In a previous post I’d demonstrated that wheels from a fatbike where the most aesthetically pleaseing on the wheelchair. [...]
Junior Adventurer - Mountain Wheelchair .com

What an Incredible Week!

It’s been an absolutely amazing week, not in terms of wheelchair progress, but in terms of Ada’s achievements. As [...]
Thankyou

Funds are Raising

Wow, what an incredible surprise! Yesterday, out of nowhere, £200 was donated to the website! In addition to this Mummy held a raffle [...]
Motor Controllers for Mountain Wheelchair small prototype

A Compact Differential Bar

Just a quick update on differential mechanisms. In previous posts I’ve looked at different types of differential mechanisms such [...]
Green Mountain Wheelchair Concept

I Want One Too!

I’ve decided that I should make myself one too, just so Ada doesn’t feel singled out of course :D [...]

Whizzing the Robot

It’s been a day full of appointments so I didn’t manage to get out and do much with the Robot/Wheelchair thing but [...]

Arisen from the Ashes

I know it’s late so this is going to be a very short but post but… It’s alive again and working far better than it [...]
New Motor Driver

Tuning Power Curves

What a great start to the day; I awoke to the sound of the doorbell, dragged myself downstairs, and as I opened the front door was [...]

Wow, that’s just Amazing!

Watch to the end! So it was working well for a moment. Still struggling to turn without drive to the rear wheels but otherwise going [...]
Radio Controls are Working

Radio Controls are Working!!!

Wow, I can’t believe how easy that was. After hacking the transmitter yesterday without testing to make sure it worked first I [...]
Radio Control

Drive on One Side

Woohoo, I have fully working drive down one side of the robot-wheelchair-thing: It looks like one of the chains is a bit baggy though [...]
Progress!

Better than Yesterday’s Mess

Yesterday I’d spent considerable time trying to weld aluminium to steel to create some mounts for the motors. Having Googled it [...]
Progress!

Frankenstein’s Wheelchair

Although my aluminium/steel welded motor-mount failed, the excitement to see it working got the better of me and after temporarily [...]
Radio Control

It’s Alive, Oh No, It Died

So today I discovered that you can’t weld aluminium to steel, no matter how hard you try, and for a brief moment my larger [...]
Progress!

24v Motors Arrived!

Walking through my front door to find the motors had arrived I completely forgot how tired I was after walking up Snowdon. In my haste [...]
scaling snowdon

Scaling Snowdon

It’s difficult in a college with so many levels of command to get things done at times, but two weeks ago I submitted a request [...]
First attempt at a remote

Radio Controls Almost Working

After finding that my home-made radio controls didn’t quite work, I added some capacitors this morning and it’s made a huge [...]
Mounted Sprocket

1st Sprocket Mounted

It works! Or at least it looks like it’s going to work. The first sprocket arrived today and using a 3D printed template I [...]

Hydraulic Syringe Cylinder

Finally managed to free up some time on the 3D printer for this project and the first thing to come out is the syringe housing to make [...]
Rolling Chassis

Rolling Chassis

Heehee; I have a rolling chassis :D I decided not to weld in the front and rear axles so as to allow me to move the axles [...]

Back to the RC Drawing Board

I managed to build a radio control transmitter and receiver on Saturday night, attached it to the small prototype and woohoo – [...]
First Weld

First Weld

Just before midnight last night I decided to bring the welder into my living-room and have a go. As you do. I’m certainly no [...]

Just for Fun

…I got a bit carried away in the 3D environment: The 3D printed wheel-spacer/sprocket-mount turned out well though: [...]
Large Scale Prototype

Our Robot Wars Entry

Just a quick update; I’ve sat and worked out how I’m going to mount the wheels and sprockets for the large scale prototype [...]
Chain Driven

Gear Effeciencies

A lot’s been happening with the project lately so I’ve not had the time to write everything up but thinking back over the [...]
Soft Tyre

Soft Tyres

So that I can do some testing, I’ve placed some obstacles in the garden which I can leave in place and see how the modifications [...]

Quick Hydraulic Bodge

Syringes arrived in the post yesterday so last thing at night I made a quick bodge using some cable insulation and a glue-gun. Even [...]
Hydraulic motor

Hydraulics Might be Better

My father has spent all of his adult life as a chief engineer in the merchant navy and although he’s now retired, I’m sure [...]
Joystick Controls

Controlling the Beast

I’ve spent a lot of time watching the current prototype climbing over large obstacles and it appears that when it’s in an [...]
Hydraulic Differential

Some thoughts on Hydraulics

Last night I said the next thing I was going to do was explore ball joints, but as I was sat at a desk in work with no access to the [...]

Working Radio Control

It’s working! I arrived home from work today to find that a number of parcels had been delivered by the postman. Amongst the [...]

Just a dream?

So the other day I estimated that the wheelchair would need to be driven by six 3,000 watt motors. At a constant gradient of 40 [...]

Differential Connection Solution

In a previous post I discussed a problem with the differential bar mechanism. Here I present two possible solutions. The first uses two [...]
Initial Design Ideas

Developing a Differential Bar

As mentioned previously, the existing rocker bogie design is working brilliantly: …however, I do forsee that it’s going to [...]
MAHLE AC Induction Motor

Power, Speed and Motors

One of the biggest unknowns at the moment is which motors are going to be used in the final wheelchair. The problem is that my [...]
Hub Motor

Idea for a quick mockup

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about motors and really like the simplicity of having a motor embedded in the hub [...]

Meeting the Principal

I haven’t yet wanted to publicise this website, partly because it’s still under heavy development, and partly because I [...]
Rocker Bogie Fix

Suggested Bogie Fix

In a previous post I had demonstrated that the bogie often flips upside down: Obviously, if this happened in the mountains with a full [...]

Student Projects are Underway

Although some of the Engineering students were busy doing English exams, these four got a first look at the prototypes today: The group [...]
Wheelchair Prototype

It’s Awesome!

…and I built a website! Restless again at 2:00am I came down stairs to completed printed parts and assembled the new version of [...]
Bucket seat being printed

More progress despite the lurgy

I’ve been feeling really run down over the last few weeks and today was no exception. Despite being ill I spent the day sat at [...]
First attempt at a remote

Radio controls

Last night I attempted to make a remote control for the motorised prototype but through trial and error I realised it wasn’t go [...]

How About Trailer Tyres?

Whilst picking up some tins of spray paint (for another project) I came across these trailer wheels. Wheels like this might be a good [...]
Caterpillar Tracks

Quick mock up using Lego

Today all those years of playing with Lego as a child was finally put to good use as I made a couple of quick mockups of possible [...]
Thinking about buying a Quad Bike

Definitely Not a Quad Bike

I’d been thinking about buying Ada a quad bike for quite some time but had decided it wasn’t the perfect solution. Unable [...]
This page was last updated on July 21st, 2018 by .
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