Re: Powerchair - was federated free software movement

[Jean Louis]

* Arthur Torrey <arthur_torrey@comcast.net> [2021-12-02 03:00]:
> I don't have much in the way of current photos, and don't see how
> they would help much since it basically would just be 'black box'
> electronic modules.

In order to make free hardware power chairs provide clear references
to functions of it. While your description gives insights, it does not
explain functions.

> I am a very active participant on the <WheelChairDriver.com>
> website, which is probably the top site in the world for people that
> hack on and do their own repairs of power chairs.  One of the
> members there has created as close to an Open Source Hardware
> control system as we have.  It is based on multiple Arduino Tinies
> and is a very complete system, but it STILL requires a proprietary
> Roboteq robotics controller, and a lot of very hairy scripting in
> Roboteq's proprietary BASIC language.  The Roboteq controllers were
> chosen because they were the only ones he could find with the extra
> functionality for the Fail-safe / Safe-fail monitoring needed on a
> power chair (or any other 'life safety critical' device)  It is also
> a factor that high power motor controllers are NOT simple, as a lot
> of the 'minor' things that get mostly ignored in basic electronics
> become major factors.  Even so I'd love to attempt doing one of
> those setups, except for the estimated $1-2K cost...

That is one step forward in understanding what you would need.

Here is list of free hardware Robotics devices which I have not verified,
could be non-free as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_hardware_projects#Robotics

Feel free to provide link to instructions of that wheel chair which
will tell about its functionality.


-- 
Jean

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