pushingthelimits.com

Adding a little power assist to manual wheelchairs is one way to cut down shoulder pain in later life and help out on hills, or getting home from the party after one too many. There have been a few different ideas over the years, with small gasoline engines fitted to a wheelchair or hand levers fitted to wheels. Now DPX Systems from Las Vegas have come up with a pretty cool new way to get the go-kart feeling in a wheelchair.

Using a standard electric drill as a motor and means of propulsion they built a transfer unit that easily bolts onto any manual wheelchair and lets you get your freak on without the added noise of a petrol engine. With speeds of between 3 and 12 mph from using that drill you got 3 years ago but have never taken out of the box.

A simple hand throttle lets you go from free wheeling to powered wheeling simply and easily, and the drill provides enough torque to a small fifth wheel under your seat to engage from a standstill.

The system is still in development and isn’t yet universally compatible with every make of manual wheelchair, but if you want one then DPX will custom make it to fit your make and model as they have done previously. No word on price or 

It only has a range of around 2 miles per charge using a standard battery, but at the same time it’s not meant to be used as a continuous power source. You continue to manually push the wheels as normal, and get a little push from the power drill whenever you need it, or whenever you feel like making a quick getaway from people asking you if you ‘play basketball in that thing’.

Obviously having an electric drill hanging off the back of your wheelchair might raise a few questions, but could also be pretty cool in a McGyver kind of way. Leading most people to assume that if they were foolish enough to lock you in a disused warehouse you’d soon construct something lethal out of household objects, or play basketball.


DPX Sstems drill powered wheelchair attachment