Invacare control system, UI?

[Jacob Morgan]

Hi,

I am currently building a project for our schools band. it is 15' long and 30" wide and about 4' high. The purpose is to hold cymbals and drive it around on the field while the snare drummers march infront of it playing the cymbals. The frame has 2 wheel chair motors mounted 1 on each side, with tires in the middle to give support. The motors are 24v motors but are being ran @ 12v. This works fine the motors have no proble carrying the frame around.

I originally wanted to do it RC, however knowing my speed controllers are only 12v I knew i was limited on speed. currently this works, however since my current speed controllers only have forward ability this is not allowing us to drive the cymbal rack backwards.

While trying to come up with a idea something hit me. I have the wheelchair which I took these motors off, which has a Invacare controller on it with a joystick controller to control it. I immediately saw the controller hooked to the joystick with a com port kinda connector.

Has anyone ever made a program, or could point me in the direction to learn how, that would enable one to hook a laptop to the part where the joystick normally did and control it via the laptop? What i'd like to do is just that, except a step further. Use a laptop with bluetooth ability, then use bluetooth to control the laptop that is onboard with another laptop(on the sidelines). Makes sense? Thus creating my own RC system. Though any suggestions on how to make the invacare system Remote Controlled, is wanted.

I don't know if this is feasible or not but the idea came to me, I figure if it isn't possible,the worst case scenario, a person can sit in side the enclosed cymbal rack and drive it. OR I can buy a long extension cable from a computer store(50'?) and hook it in and use the joystick via the sidelines to drive it, my concern there tho is if I got a longer cable would the controller still function?

Any comments welcomed, I am hoping that this is possible and that maybe some1 has already done this.

Thanks for your time,

Jacob