THE BECKER HAND
What is it?
The Becker Imperial is a mechanical prosthetic hand. It contains springs that close automatically. It can be opened by pulling a cable.
It is typically mounted on body powered prosthetic arms that use a cable control harness. The user can open the hand by pulling the arm away from the harness.
The Becker Lock Grip hand is similar, the differences are subtle. Whereas the Becker Imperial has a robust lightweight plastic body, the Becker Lock grip has a wooden body. The Becker Imperial has an additional spring to add closing power. The spring strength can be set by adjusting a screw on the base plate.
Construction, function
The fingers are constructed with vertically mounted flat steel plates. These contain a number of joints so the fingers do bend at a knuckle type joint. The hand body contains springs and transmission mechanisms.
The fingers are controlled through thick wires. The finger steel plates and wires are protected by round spring wire enclosures. The finger tips are silicone made and prevent slipping. Fingers always move in a constrained individual way. That means that limited adaptation to irregular shapes is a main feature of the Becker hands.
Adaptive grip
The Becker hands feature a grip that is adaptive. That means that fingers can wrap around irregularly shaped objects.
The adaptive grip of these hands is constrained in that the fingers do not follow any dimension of contours. Much rather, the adaptive grip is optimized for everyday objects.
Comparison to other products
The Becker hands look cooler and provide a better grip function than the Otto Bock system hands. The reason are somewhat deformable shape, grip precision, grip strength and adaptive grip.
The Becker hand is more affordable than the Otto Bock system hand.
The Becker hand contains a far more extensive warranty than Otto Bock’s system hands.
Contact / order
The price for a Becker hand is around 650 USD (may be subject to change).
Please contact John Becker directly:
http://www.beckermechanicalhand.com/
Becker Mechanical Hand Co.
152 Stevens Street West
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55107-2731
United States of America
mailto: beckerhands@aol.com
(651) 224-1796 Main
(651) 225-1712 Fax