(image source: www.sunrisemedical.com)
The ZM-310® is a reliable kids power wheelchair base usually with pediatric seating and positioning options to provide children maximum accessibility and independence. This chair has been discontinued but you may still find some being used.
Type of frame
1 inch round tube (often with the seat-pan on the top of the tube), pass-through holes along the length of the tubing
The Frame Clamp Required on Quickie ZM-310
It could be any of the clamps listed below:
The clamps used most for ZM-310:
- Tube Clamp Technique
1″ Round Tube FRONT SIDE MOUNT (pictured to the right)
It is often very hard, if not impossible, to access the back-side of the regular Side Mount Clamp due to the configuration of the ZM-310 on the inside of the seat-pan tubing, which is the the reason why the Front Side Mount Clamp works best – the bolts are on the “Front Side”!
If there is no room or obstructions on the round tube that supports the seat-pan, the second type of clamp to consider takes advantage of the pass-through holes that are along the ZM-310’s tubing.
To that end we use a Multi-Hole Plate with Round Tube Adapters, either the small 2″ plate or the medium 3″ plate (pictured to the right).
- Bolt-through Technique #1
Small MultiHole Plate with Round Tube Adapters - Bolt-through Technique #2
Medium MultiHole Plate with Round Tube Adapters
Where It Is Attached
There is a tilting seat mechanism built into these chairs so attachment is usually onto the seat-base frame – see our article Mounting Onto Tilting Seat Wheelchairs for more details.
How We Do It
Each one of the above clamps and attachment techniques work with ZM-310 chairs.
The one that works best for YOUR chair setup will depend on the chair, however we always start with what is the simplest, which is the regular 1″ Front Side Mount Frame Clamp. This is usually the one that works
Usually, the Front Side Mount Clamp can be attached on the round tubing supporting the seat base. In the image above, we would be looking at the tube space just read of the vehicle tie-down point, in between the two bolts locating other hardware on the tubing.
We’d also be armed with the Bolt-through parts as those existing bolts look like they are competing for our “clamp space”.
Common Side Mount Obstacles and Obstructions on ZM-310
The ZM-310 wheelchairs have 1 inch round tubing and bolt holes along the seat-base framework of the chair.
There are often space issues and obstacles that can make the Front Side Mount Frame Clamp difficult to position.
These obstacles are generally existing hardware and fixing points, which would make closing the round clamp difficult or impossible, or may mean it needs to be attached in a less than favorable position (see images 2 and 3 below).
There can also be obstructions on the inside of the seat-base tubing, like weld spots and other fixing hardware. Sometimes the vehicle tie downs may get in the way too.
This is the case in two images of the green ZM-310 above, which then requires the mount setup to include additional parts like Offset Links which assist in bringing the start of the vertical section of the mount further forward. We’re always trying to attach a mount kit as far forwards as possible so we can have it as vertical as possible to fight the ever present affect of gravity.
This is exactly what we managed to do with the green ZM-310 below, trhe Front Side Mount Clamp fitted however it was further back than ideal so a couple of Offset Links were used to move the start of the vertical section further foward.
“Tool Space”
We can almost guarantee you will have issues getting tools to the inside of the seat-base frame of the ZM-310.
If so, then the FRONT SIDE MOUNT CLAMP is easier to attach as the attachment bolts are on the front of the clamp (as the name suggest).
The bolts are underneath the Inner Piece Adapter (IPA) which is a black, beveled ring bolted onto all these clamps. The IPA creates the bind between the clamp and the parts that come next ( and is also one of the original key aspects of all DAESSY Mounts)
The trick with the FRONT SIDE MOUNT Clamp is making sure it’s hanging plumb before it’s tightened up. Accessing the tightening bolts underneath the IPA to adjust after the mount is constructed requires a full strip-down back to those bolts. Believe us, that’s a frustrating job.
We carry a very small spirit level in our kit-bags to check it’s plumb before ratcheting down the bolts and installing the Inner Piece Adapter over the top of them.
“Inside Tube Space”
The real trick with Quickie ZM-310 is when there is NO tube space to fit a round tube clamp and NO room on the inside of the tubing to use your allen wrench or limited room for other tools.
In the example of the blue ZM-310 pictured below, we had to take the seat cushion off to ascertain what we were working with and found it was going to be physically impossible to get a round clamp around the tube.
Not only that, we could also see that we need a SHIFTING SPANNER to help us with the hardware required to attach the Bolt-through parts.
So one take-away point with ZM-310 is to make sure you have a good shifting spanner in your tool kit!
Bolt-through Method
For Quickie ZM-310, the “bolt-through” technique takes advantage of the holes that already exist in the frame tubing of the chair.
That process of clamp attachment is the same as for Freedom NXT chairs, follow this link for the details however the inside round-tube adapters may not fit in the space available. In that case, they are simply locked off with the washer and the nylock nut, the shifting spanner helps hold the nut in place as the bolts are tightened on the outside.
This can be seen in the images of the yellow ZM-310 below where the outside-tube adapters are in place but there was no room at all for the inside-tube adapters, which were locked off with their washers only.
We also had to take the top section of the seat-pan off to access to inner section of the tubing, otherwise we couldn’t get our shifting spanner inside to hold the nut.
This one was tricky and took a couple of hours to complete!
The MH3/IPA was use in this case to spread the load across more tube length as we were mounting a heavy Accent 1400 for eye-gaze.
This is then the anchor point for the rest of the mount.
Installation of your Mount Kit to your Quickie ZM-310
Once the Frame Clamp is installed, no matter which method is used to do so, the rest of the Mount Kit is installed as per the requirements of the kit being used.
The frame clamp is the anchor of the mount kit and the part that connects your mounted technology to your chair. Making sure the best method is used, attached in the right way is very important to the stability of the kit, access to that mounted technology and safety of the person using it.
