Accessibility and water parks and non-electric wheelchairs

April 18, 2017 8:12 AM

The PneuChair is lighter than most powered wheelchairs, "recharges" faster, and has no electric components, meaning that it can be used in water parks. It would also allow users to bathe more independently and worry less about weather.
posted by Etrigan (17 comments total)

There are pneumatic golf carts. Ad Peugeot once worked on a hybrid car that used pneumatics/compressed air instead of batteries.

Another advantage is that there is no 'battery wearout' problem.
posted by eye of newt at 8:26 AM on April 18, 2017

No battery wear out, but SCUBA tanks have to be hydrostatically tested every so often.

(Asimov, I think, also was big on the air-car concept in his writing)
posted by k5.user at 9:04 AM on April 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

How far can it go on a charge, comparatively?
posted by macrael at 9:30 AM on April 18, 2017

How far can it go on a charge, comparatively?

The Gizmodo article says it lasts about 3 miles, which is about 1/3 as long as the battery-powered equivalents, but the tanks can be recharged in ~10 minutes compared to ~8 hours for the batteries.
posted by brainmouse at 9:49 AM on April 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

This has the potential to be game changing awesome. Go team.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 9:50 AM on April 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

How far can it go on a charge, comparatively?

Second link states "Its range is limited to about three miles, or about a third of the distance a battery-powered wheelchair can travel", noting the much faster recharge time. Cursory googling suggests that electric wheelchairs actually have ranges of around 12 miles and up (although that's just my impression). It seems to me that this, if it is sufficienty reliable and powerful, might well be an excellent tool in certain use cases, but it is unclear to what extent it can replace significant numbers of electric wheelchairs.
posted by howfar at 9:53 AM on April 18, 2017

Couldn't you just add more tanks in order to increase the range? They say that it's lighter than a comparable electric scooter; how far could it go if you added enough tanks that it matched the weight of an electric?
posted by clawsoon at 10:00 AM on April 18, 2017

Compressed air often returns more energy than batteries. The question I have, is how much noise is there? Does it sound like Darth Vader?
posted by Mag Plug at 10:32 AM on April 18, 2017

I'm sorry, I understand that it can get wet in the rain without problems, being non-electronic, but going to a waterpark? Like, down wet concrete ramps, and possibly down a shallow slide or two? With pressurized air tanks?

Is there a liability waiver in the world large enough?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 10:35 AM on April 18, 2017

how much noise is there?

Especially in charging. I can't see what pressure it runs at (at the airport so videos are hard to watch properly), but bottle compressors are REALLY BLOODY NOISY. At least the ones I am around that need to get the bottles to around 2000psi. Maybe scuba tanks are lower than that?

Also, more pressure is more range maybe?
posted by Brockles at 10:37 AM on April 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm sorry, I understand that it can get wet in the rain without problems, being non-electronic, but going to a waterpark? Like, down wet concrete ramps, and possibly down a shallow slide or two? With pressurized air tanks?

Is there a liability waiver in the world large enough?

The waterpark in question is specially designed to be "ultra-accessible", so they've likely thought of those things and aren't just letting people roll their PneuChairs onto a Verrückt raft.
posted by Etrigan at 10:50 AM on April 18, 2017

While recharge time is quick compressors are loud, heavy, expensive(compared to electrical chargers) and large whereas battery chargers are quiet, light and small. Tank swaps are practical though so I could see this getting use in places where it is worth it for the facility to provided chairs.

Lots of water parks are at least partially accessible by wheelchair right now; just not the powered variety.
posted by Mitheral at 11:13 AM on April 18, 2017

The waterpark in question is specially designed to be "ultra-accessible", so they've likely thought of those things and aren't just letting people roll their PneuChairs onto a Verrückt raft.

Even then, the Verrückt didn't do a good job of not killing people and as a result was torn down.
posted by mmascolino at 11:30 AM on April 18, 2017

Those tanks look like similar to standard scuba tanks. I don't quite understand the fear-mongering above about the tanks. Scuba tanks are quite safe and are not known for exploding, even when being banged about - it's not something that a scuba diver even thinks about. Scuba tanks are pressurized to 3000 psi, and the compressors aren't particularly noisy (the video says the tanks can be recharged in 15 seconds - which is way faster than I've seen a scuba tank filled. Maybe 15 seconds if you have a large reservoir of compressed air to fill the tanks with). In addition, there's no indication that the chair would be used on a water slide (that seems particularly unwise as with slides you either lay down or sit as low as possible); the chair seems to be used just to get in the water and play around.
posted by ShooBoo at 11:55 AM on April 18, 2017

Well, if you have a scuba tank anyway, I guess you can go as far into the water as you want.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:21 PM on April 18, 2017

What I wanna know is, can you carry a compressor with you, go 3 miles to the library, and then charge up there so you can go home? Given the comments I'm seeing here, it's looking like the answer is "no".
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 11:36 AM on April 21, 2017

I've been thinking about this since my last comment. While current compressors to fill scuba tanks aren't really manwheelchair portable I don't think there is anything that would make a small unit impossible. It's just likely to take longer to charge than with a stationary unit and be fairly expensive.
posted by Mitheral at 12:48 PM on April 21, 2017