One of the key elements to making sure your electric wheelchair will perform as you need it to do is to make sure that the batteries are correctly maintained. However, this can be a little confusing as most electric wheelchair batteries are now ‘gel’ batteries and are described as ‘maintenance free’!!
In essence, they are indeed maintenance free and only need a good and regular recharging process to make sure they will last as long as possible before needing to be replaced.
When recharging your chairs batteries there are some things to ensure you do:
- Make sure your electric wheelchair joystick is switched off before doing anything else
- Plug the charger into the socket on the joystick on the electric wheelchair first, then the charger plug into an electrical socket before then switching on the charger
- When charging is complete switch off the charger before removing the charger from the socket on the joystick
These important suggestions should also help to make sure that the batteries last as long as possible:
- Charge as often and as long as possible (preferably overnight). Try to avoid short charges, especially ones of a couple of hours or so
- Leave on charge if you are not using your chair (make sure that the charger is still connected to the mains).
- Use a main socket where possible. Try to avoid using extension leads.
- Keep in the green and orange lights on the joystick. Try to avoid going into the red lights as this can have an adverse effect on battery life over time.
- Regularly check the battery terminals for corrosion. Your electric wheelchair supplier should be able to do this for you if you cannot do it yourself.
I hope that this has given you a starting point towards understanding more about how to maintain and regularly charge the batteries on your electric wheelchair and some of the things to consider before purchasing. Of course, there are many individual needs and factors that may also need to be thought about and discussed, so please feel free to get in touch here and one of our Product Specialists will contact you to answer any of your questions.
