Buy or build? I'm just starting to think of how convenient a wheelchair lift would be for the old folks and know less than nothing about them. I did make a hinged plywood ramp but it is a pain. My first instinct is to hob together some steel and hydraulics or have a commercial lift installed or...a couple of ski-ropes tied to the bumper. (Try to get THAT visual out of your head!)
Well the skateboarders would love you if you did the last one. Ken
Tom: Depends on the model van. I know that there are a couple of models of minivans that there are no commercial lifts available for. It's not that the vans are not popular enough, it has to do with the basic frame structure and all the motion that is required to get a chair in and out.
Been there and done the research and wasn't happy with the results...
Craig C. snipped-for-privacy@ev1.net
I have a '98 Ford 350 1-ton Super-Duty extended showing up at my door Friday. I couldn't find a bigger one.
Normally I'd say build your own, go for it, make the Tim Taylor Binford Wheelchair Lift for the ages - that's the whole idea of the group. BUT (and that's a huge but)...
This is a medical device, meant to be used with ill or elderly people who might not be able to stop themselves from falling if they get off balance or it starts breaking and tilts.
If you are going to put people other than yourself on it and wave them around in mid-air, I would at least start with a commercial wheelchair lift - because if someone ends up hurt or dead, you won't hear the end of it for years.
If you need to modify the lift or the mounting bracketry a bit to make it fit the car, or work with an unusual wheelchair, that's OK. But I'd want someone with a big product liability insurance policy to take responsibility for doing proper engineering and ensuring structural integrity.
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The people who manufacture those things commercially have already made, and corrected one would hope, all the mistakes you'd make building your own.
Better to learn from THEIR mistakes, no?
I think you'll need a van with a raised roof. All the vans I've ever seen with a lift installed had the raised roof.
Shawn
Check out Ricon, Bruno, Braun, Harmar Auto-Lift, Freedom Lift and whatever others you can find on the www for example designs.
There are a few "Gotchas" in wheelchair lift construction. The platform has to swing far enough out to clear the step most full-size vans have at the side doors. The platform has to stay level throughout its full travel, excepting folding up for stowage. There should be some kind of self-operating stop to prevent a wheelchair rolling off the platform. Most lifts' designs assume operation on level ground. It can get hairy trying to get a wheelchair on/off a lift platform if there's a slope where you're parked.
If you're hauling more than one wheelchair user, you're pretty much stuck to standard platform lifts. Other types use up too much floor space in the vehicle.
Next issue: How do you plan to tie down wheelchair(s) once you get them into the van? I don't tie down my chair, but that's on me. The thought of having 300 pounds of powerchair landing on my back during a head-on has given me pause though. :)
Make sure whatever lift you buy or make will reach the ground. That's not a joke: Many/most have a limited lifting height, van floor to ground.
I got lucky: Another wheelie had a used Crow River (I think Braun bought them out.) that he gave me. Big lift with 600 pound rated capacity. I had to widen the platform to take my 26.5 inch monster powerchair, but the price was right and I can weld. I've lifted close to 1000# with it at odd times; not recommended, but possible.
I work as a part-time tech at a non-profit DME dealer. We install quite a few of certain types, but we generally refer platform lift buyers to specialists until we get ourselves certified as installers for them.
It's a very good bet that 1/2 the price of a wheelchair lift device of whatever kind is insurance premiums! :)
They're simple mechanisms, usually overbuilt all to hell. (That liability thing again) With your demonstrated ability to design and build machines, it shouldn't be too hard for you to roll your own, but you may find parts expensive, especially medical-use rated parts. Some makers of actuators, etc, may not even deal with you at all unless you can show insurance coverage that can hold them harmless.
"Tom Gardner" wrote in news:oyqpe.8556$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com:
If you build your own Tom, just remember that you are dealing with human life, and as such, anything that can fail has to result in a 'failsafe' condition. Whatever fails must result in the thing just stopping its motion. Things like spring actuated mechanical clamping brakes on the vertical lift portion, redundant everything, etc.
Concidering my mother's personality, I'm thinking of a lift that converts to a catapult...so safety isn't a big issue. (just kidding, Mom)
Notepad from the Desk Of Tom's Mother Note to lawyers: Write that no good son of mine OUT of the will. He gets $1 and an ironclad No-Contest clause. ;-)
(Rule Number 1: NEVER Piss Off Momma. It's VERY dangerous.)
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I have seen one, that worked with an Astro van. It wasn't a lift, but a hoist. It dropped the wheel chair out of a pod like a car top carrier on top of the van, right next to the drivers door, and then of course back up into the pod when done.
At the time I wasn't in a wheel chair, so didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it.
"Shawn" wrote:
jk
Or dropped the floor as in the conversion of the Dodge -Plymouth -Cry ---minivans ...nice conversions but at the same price as the van itself as I can remember from a number of years ago .....my advice is to get a used unit as there are too many variables for a home project ....
Take care ....Tom nr Pittsburgh
There is a pretty healthy secondary market for these things. Check with a nearby rehab hospital. If they do any MS or spinal cord injury work they will have a line on this type of used equipment as well as people selling it.
As a matter of fact, I'll soon be replacing my 1993 E150 which is complete with lift, automatic door openers and hand controls in the near future. Perhaps you'd be interested if you're anywhere near the greater Philadelphia area.
Steve
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