1) Disassembling an Existing Power Base of a Power Chair for the Motors and Bearings

• Take wheels off of the power frame

• Extract bearing 

  • Cut wheel off of power chair

• Take motors out 

2) Bed frame

• Take apart a bed frame for the angle iron metal pieces to use as the frame for the beach power wheel chair. We needed to clean the main pieces to get rid of the legs of the bed frame.  We used a grinder to break the rivets off and clean the framing

• We also grinded the paint off the frame to weld other metal pieces

3) Snowboard Bindings

• Find Snowboard Bindings that are a good fit for your feet. We were fortunate to find a snowboard at the local recycling facility

3) Tubular steel

• Various lengths of tubular steel to build the frame of the power wheel chair

4) Wheels

• We bought the wheels online.

5) Batteries

• We bought the batteries from online

1) Preparing the Raw Materials

1. Cut L pieces off of angle iron bed frame with hot cut saw. Use a grinder or metal file to smooth out sharp edges from the cut.

2. Do step 1 for both the long sides of the angle iron

3. Take shorter sides of angle iron and cut them to the width of the chair frame. Mark where to cut with a sharpie. Do twice. Could do with band saw, hack saw, cut off wheel, or cold saw

2) Tacking frame together

4. Use hand held grinder to take paint off the bed frame to prep for welding. Do it for just the tips (about a 1/4 inch) until only raw metal is visible (lighter shade). Complete this on each each of each piece (all sides that need to be welded).

5. Grab boards for welding

6. Weld together the pieces

7. Chop and grind paint off of the tubular steel on each end

8. Grind off sides of tubular steel

9. Tack tubular steel with stick welding to main frame (long angle iron pieces) assembly. Do thicker end piece first, then tack inner piece.

10. Take two more pieces of tubular steel and cut them and grind the edges. These are for the front wheel. 

11. We then weld the two pieces of steel together using and flat rectangular bar. This will create a long u shape.

3) Attach the front wheel to the frame

12. We will then drill out a half moon on the outer edge of the bottom of the u. This is to weld the bearing holder that will allow the front wheel to swivel.

13. We then connect the front wheel fork into the bearings in the bearing holder through a running fit. The front wheel fork secures the wheel to the front wheel frame.

4) Weld the tacks

14. Sand down and weld all tacks

15. Weld flat plate of steel to the back of the frame to support the motor and battery

5) Spray paint

16. Spray paint the frame for a clean, colorful finish!

1. We started with the wiring from the power wheel chair. If you don't have these you will need to source them. We received motors with wiring that connected to a controller, the controller with joystick, and battery connector wiring that goes to the controller.

2. The initial wiring was set up to connect the controller to two batteries. Strip the wiring of the controller and connected the respective colored wiring to one of the battery connector wiring. Crimp a butt connector to connect the wires in a safe manner.

3. Connect the respective cables to the correct connections on the controller. This allows the user to control the motor through the joystick.

4. Once you connect the battery to the wiring you just crimped, the motors should be powered and drive!

1) Mill motor mount plates

1. Mill down protruding edges on steel piece previously attached onto the motor for mounting purposes

2. Drill holes into flat plate on back of frame to bolt the frame mounting piece and motor together

2) Fabricate motor-wheel hub adapters

3. This adapter interfaces between the motors mount plates and the wheels. The screw holes on the wheel hub and the motor don't align, so we needed to make our own adapter by cutting a cylindrical piece of tubular steel and drilling holes into them. We also tapped the holes with a lathe to make the screws extra secure.

3) Fabricate spacer

4. Cut a tubular piece of acrylic to the desired height of your spacer. We needed a spacer to ensure that our motors were completely outside of the wheel and on top of the frame. 

4) Assemble the drive train

5. Screw motor adapter to wheels. 

6. Screw motors onto motor adapters. We used screws of differing lengths that our shop had on hand.

7. Thread spacer onto motor shaft. 

8. Screw motors onto mounting plates. 

9. Screw the motor/mounting plate assembly to the rest of the frame

1. Place battery into its designated spot on the back of the frame.

2. Reconnect the battery cables to the motors if you disconnected them to mount the motors to the frame

3. The chair should drive!