Wheelchair Lever Drive

thingiverse

Edit: I have now made this in Aluminum and it's holding up very well! I definitely suggest either making this in metal rather than plastic or using my other version with the straight mending plates inlaid on the top if you're going to 3D print them. I designed this so that I could add on a lever drive to my wheelchair for under $100. The 3D printed piece is obviously only as strong as what you print it in. My current setup is PET-G, which for me was fine on hard flooring/concrete but shredded on carpet, and I'm hoping to eventually use the .step file to get a stainless steel version made. You attach the drive to your existing wheelchair wheels using 4xM6x40mm bolts, 4 washers (wide enough to bridge the gap between two of your spokes), and 8 nuts (two for each bolt). If you have mag wheels, use a curved mending plate to hold the 3D printed piece to your wheel's hub. Then insert an extra-long 1/2 inch drive ratchet wrench (for me, I used one that was 600mm long) into the center hole of the 3D printed piece and use that as your lever to drive your chair. Obviously, you'll need to repeat this setup for each of your wheels.