element14 presents Forum - Recent Threads

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

Kingbob01 — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 17:14:34 GMT

I was going to use those, but I need to hook it up to an Arduino. I am a student who is working on a small project. I hope to create an EEG-powered wheelchair where, if we think of an action, the wheelchair will do it (e.g. if we think of moving forward, we will move forward). So for that to work, I need to hook up the motors to an Arduino. I am trying to use a simple, but strong enough motor. to get the job done and eventually have it controlled via brainwaves. In the video they used https://www.newark.com/trinamic-analog-devices/qsh4218-51-10-049/stepper-motor-2-ph-1a-49n-cm/dp/24M6628. It looks good in the video, I am just not sure if it can move around 180-200 pounds, including the wheelchair.

DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

Kingbob01 — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 16:48:05 GMT

Hi,

I recently stumbled upon the DIY wheelchair [mention:1579c9c12397462eb7227fc2e6e81a3e:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] created ( [mention:035beb270cd745e3bc9a3214aab42dea:6b577b8c04704e209d29b6772bf67243] ), I loved the idea and wanted to create something similar. I am hoping to make the wheelchair a bit faster/stronger. I was wondering if you know of any motors and motor drivers that can help me out. I am looking for a little more torque and speed within $100. I am using an Arduino for this. Please let me know if you know any!

Thanks!

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

beacon_dave — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 17:07:27 GMT

Motors from manual handling equipment might be another potential source. A small motorised pallet jack will usually be able to move at a walking pace while carrying a load much heavier than a person.

As well as windscreen wiper motors there are also cordless electric drill motors.

MOTORS -The Secret Life of Components, a series of guides for makers and designers 11

GEARS - The Secret Life of Components, a series of guides for makers and designers - 18

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

robogary — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 16:27:18 GMT

good point. I believe the ebikes are DC brushless motors with torque regulation, maybe not the best for a beginner https://bikexchange.com/electric-bike-motors-guide/. I have an ebike, natively it is a torque provider, doesnt care about speed at all,

Wiper motors are a favorite for some folks.

Used/trashed wheelchair and mobility scooters motors are a possibility. One easy way to make them go faster and produce more torque is to overvolt them by adding another battery in series. It fun as an experiment, not great on the drive train :-) I'd expect the motor insulation could take the volts, but not the heat of wheelchair drag racing. Stall current could be a problem. Adding batteries and buying motors blow the budget pretty fast.

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

Fred27 — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 09:06:16 GMT

If you want to do things on a budget then perhaps you could repurpose the in-wheel motors from a "hoverboard". You know - those two-wheeled fire-hazard death-trap balance boards that everyone soon got tired of.

You should be able to find one very cheap (or sometimes free) and there's plenty of videos on YouTube of people doing things with them.

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

beacon_dave — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 20:25:09 GMT

I seem to recall a number of makers using wheelchair motors in their projects because they are small, high torque and easy to get hold of, so perhaps start looking there.

Other places to look at might be e-bike parts and e-scooter parts as they are primarily designed to move people around so should already be in the right ball park.

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

robogary — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 18:44:04 GMT

Before buying parts, do a little high school physics on your mechanical parts. How fast you want to go...surface speed. Then wheel rpm created. The tire driver surface wheel is also going surface speed at the touch points. Calculate ideal acceleration torque needed for the weight. Take into account your 200lb friend might want to ride too. The wheel diameter to the surface wheel driver diameter are essentially a gearbox ... a torque amplifier. Those answers will drive your dc motor selection. Using ac motors are alot more complicated in this configuration. A good electrical/ electronics engineer has to do basic mechanical and thermal analysis.

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

acdc90 — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 17:25:56 GMT

Hello do you have a place that sells second hand electronics in your aera.

have you pulled much stuff apart

i did not watch all of your link to video.

are you looking at using stepper or dc motors

have you thought of modifing a mobility scooter

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

michaelkellett — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 09:55:37 GMT

You have a lot to learn - start on You tube, I searched " youtube diy electric wheelchair" and interesting stuff comes up. You'll need to spend some time getting into this if you are serious about doing it.

People on E14 will help you by answering specific questions but you won't get far with very general requests like

[quote userid="517114" url="~/technologies/experts/f/forum/56480/diy-electronic-controlled-motorized-wheelchair---question/232106"]could you list out all the materials I would need to build this[/quote]

I don't know your engineering background - I've been doing electronics and more general engineering for 50 years and I would expect to spend a few weeks thinking and learning about this before getting to the detail of what bits to buy. The people who make commercial products have years (lots of them) of experience - you are lucky enough to live in an age where a lot of this information is available on the web - but you will need to put some serious time into finding it and absorbing it.

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

Kingbob01 — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:57:41 GMT

The plan is that it is for indoor use only on flat to slightly inclined areas. I weigh about 145, and my wheelchair is 40 pounds. I don't know what kind of battery, motor, or motor drivers to use. I would really appreciate the help. Thanks!

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

Kingbob01 — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:54:59 GMT

I mean, like motors under $100. Also, if you don't mind, could you list out all the materials I would need to build this? I am kind of lost...

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

Kingbob01 — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:51:24 GMT

Hi,

Thanks for replying! I am actually a student planning to take this project to the next level. I love engineering, but I am relatively new to this. If you don't mind, could you try to help me out further? If you are interested or know someone who might be interested, please direct message me. I would appreciate any help I can get. Thanks again!

RE: DIY Electronic Controlled Motorized Wheelchair - Question

acdc90 — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:46:05 GMT

For $100 You are joking , now you what more Torque and speed so you will need more battery power,

so with bigger motors and battery how heavy this will be when finished

will it go on a drive way or similar with inclined slope will it need to have a brake

is this just for inside the house or do you need to think about protection from water

how much time in between charging battery is axcepable

Hope this helps your decision what you actually want, you should have fun and frustration building this

RE: DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

beacon_dave — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 19:45:24 GMT

It looks like you are almost there. It is perhaps time to start building a prototype on some breadboard to help understand the circuit.

If you start with one decade counter connected to one display driver you can clock it manually using the switch and watch the results on the display.

Build a second decade counter circuit and add the preset logic to see it counting down from 5 instead of 9.

Then join the two together to see the cascade working.

Build the clock circuit and test it counting down from 59 seconds.

Add in another two decade counters for the minutes display, and then another two decade counters for the hours display.

There is more information on how decade counters work over on episode 73 of The Learning Circuit:

/challenges-projects/element14-presents/thelearningcircuit/w/documents/4898/how-decade-counters-work----the-learning-circuit-73

DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

evo — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 09:41:11 GMT

Hey everyone, I'm trying to create a countdown system, but I'm having trouble understanding how everything works together. I'm not really sure how to chain the parts properly. Could someone please show me a clear schematic or example of how to connect everything step by step?

RE: DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

evo — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 18:06:32 GMT

heb je easyeda, ik ben nog vrij nieuw bij al dit dus zou je mischien kunnen helpen met het maken van alles, je kan ook altijd de webversie gebruiken

RE: DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

beacon_dave — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 19:20:12 GMT

Where you have removed the logic you probably want to pull the preset enable pin low rather than leave it floating

as per the original schematic

RE: DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

evo — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 19:09:56 GMT

RE: DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

beacon_dave — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 20:19:26 GMT

You probably want the switches on all 6 counters so that you can set each individually.

You have too much reset logic. Only the 2nd, 4th (and potentially 5th and 6th) counter needs it.

The 1st counter (seconds units) drives the last digit so it needs to be able to count from 9 down to 0
The 2nd counter (seconds tens) drives the second last digit so needs to count from 5 down to 0 so needs the reset logic.

Same with the minutes counters.

What is the maximum number of hours are you wanting to count down from as that will affect the reset logic. No logic and it will count down from max of 99hours.

The same logic for the minutes and seconds and it will count down from max of 59hours.

but you could change the reset logic to make it from max of whatever you want.

RE: DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

evo — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 19:40:52 GMT

is this good?

RE: DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

beacon_dave — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 09:11:42 GMT

BCD (binary coded decimal).

The JAM1-JAM4 pins set the value you want to reset the decade counter to, so in this case it has been set to the value of 0101 (5 decimal).

The reset is triggered by the combinational logic attached to the counter outputs Q1-Q4.

When ( Q2 AND Q3 are high ) OR when Q4 is HIGH the counter is reset.

The logic added will therefore reset the counter to 5 whenever the counter outputs a value of 6,7,8, or 9.

RE: DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

evo — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 05:31:39 GMT

is that binairy?

RE: DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

beacon_dave — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 19:47:13 GMT

Yes, but I think you need to remove the reset logic on the 1's counter for the minutes and the 1's counter for the hours as they will need to show 0-9 and not 0-5.

RE: DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

evo — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 19:29:02 GMT

like this?

RE: DIY Discrete Logic LED Countdown Timer

beacon_dave — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 18:26:25 GMT

Start with the clock circuit:

and connect the 1Hz output (top right) to the Clk input (middle left) of the 1's counter:

Then connect the CarryOut (lower right) to the Clk input (upper middle left) on the 10's counter:

The cascade connection between the two counters is shown here:

To add the preset option you need to insert the switches between the clock 1Hz output and the 1's counter, and the carry out of the 1's counter and the clock input of the 10's counter as shown here:

which disconnects it from automatic clock operation and allows you to clock it manually with the push buttons.

Note that the display digits are in the reverse order here. The 1's counter display is shown on the left on the schematic whereas in the physical world it will be positioned on the right.