Power Wheelchair Build

[twinforced]

In short I'm taking my electric wheelchair (Blast 850) and making it work better for me offroad.

It has a pair of large permanent mag, 4 pole motors, I dont know what they are rated at because Pride will not talk to me about any of that.

It had a 100 amp peak controller that was just not up to the job and would over heat in a heart beat, it died the other day with a sad puff of smoke..

I want to put it an AmpFlow controller for a few reasons.
One is more power.
Two is I can program it to just the way I want it to act.
Three is that it can run at 100 amps for A LONG TIME and not over heat, and even do 120 amps with out any probs, this would be the limit I would set it at. It would live a long happy life.

My prob is the joystick I have has more wires than need'd.

I just want simple Tank drive, the controller will mix the 2 channels and do that, even set the brakes when I stop. I dont know how a joystick is power'd, I understand the Channel 1 & 2, but will the AmpFlow require me to use the Center Tap, and what the heck do I do with the Positive and Negative leads ?

Here are the spec sheet for the Joystick.
http://www.pennyandgiles.com/docGallery/103.PDF

I cant seem to be able to copy and past the spec sheet for the controller, but its an AmpFlow.
http://www.ampflow.com/motor_controller.htm

Ive had a few answers on the joystick but I need a definite, it goes here answer.

Thanks.

 

[dknguyen]

You have a potentiometer joystick. This means each axis on the joy-stick is a potentiometer (a variable resistive divider). The plus and negative leads power the joystick (it says so in the datasheet so I'm not sure why you asked this). They provide the positive and negative endpoint voltages for the resistive divider. The center line is biased to be exactly half this voltage at all times.

The rest is all down to the AmpFlow controller. Whether or not it will use the center tap is in the user's guide. The center line may or may not be needed depending on what the AmpFlow decides is center: +V/2, or the center line voltage. If it is the former case then the AmpFlow will need some access to the joy stick's voltage (such as the electronics and joystick being powered off the same supply). If center-line is not needed, just leave it unconnected. DO NOT connect it to any end of the voltage supply or it will force your joystick to be stuck in an extreme corner position.

All of this was already answered in one of the other versions of this post. I believe this topic has been triple posted now. NO need for that. I'm getting lost in all the different versions.

Why did your last controller burn out? Didn't you have a fuse? It's dangerous to be using such high currents without a fuse.