Types of Wheelchair Batteries

Types of Wheelchair Batteries

What are the types of wheelchair batteries?

Wheelchair batteries are generally deep-cycle batteries of either the gel or absorbed glass mat (AGM) varieties. That they are "deep cycle" means that these batteries are designed to be discharged and recharged repeatedly. Wheelchair batteries are also often called "sealed" batteries.

Types of Wheelchair Batteries

Each electric wheelchair model has its own particular features and strengths. When you purchased your power chair you probably considered these factors carefully before choosing a model. If the distance the power chair could travel on one charge of its batteries was important to you when you weighed your options, you may have selected a wheelchair with batteries that have a larger power capacity. Operation of a wheelchair's features is highly dependent upon its batteries.

Battery Capacities

There are a few main size capacities of batteries, each of which has a different amount of distance it can typically cover on one charge. The way in which your individual wheelchair uses power as well as the terrain over which you use the wheelchair also affect the distance it can travel, so these ranges of batteries are highly variable. To give you an idea of the capacities of batteries, here are just a couple examples: one of the smaller wheelchair batteries, the U1 group 30 Ah (ampere-hour) capacity, can go about ten to twelve miles. Larger Group-27 95 Ah wheelchair batteries can travel about eighteen to twenty-two miles per charge.

Other Battery Considerations

If your wheelchair has a specialty seating system, it will probably require a specific size of wheelchair batteries to fit physically within the unit's space for the batteries. If you are choosing between types of wheelchair batteries, you should check with your insurance provider or funding source for restrictions before choosing wheelchair batteries. Some programs have specifications regarding batteries and will cover only the smaller NF22 wheelchair batteries.