LOL, the spokes were found last year when someone trashed their bike trying to jump it... broke the frame in half, and ended up in the hospital... kid was very stupid, hopefully he learned his lesson. Anyway, I picked the bike out of the trash with his permision and stripped it of usefull parts.

about the weather... It is pouring again... I am slightly irritated and very wet!

I just read your entire thread. I WANT MORE!!!!

Very good job, and the amount of work and detail you have put into this is awesome!

I need moving functioning video ASAP!!!!

LOL, I think that I am going to have to make you wait!

you see, I could not resist the temptation... I put my brushless motor in it and am doing some final setup work... I need a few more screws to hold the duct down with this kind of power!

I just finished reading through your thread and I am very impressed - also eager to see the video! It's great to see another young person involved in this hobby(17y/o myself). Most of my friends just don't see the appeal of scratch building. Great job. Keep up the good work!

-Crazy

Ah, yes that is very true about scratch building... Just today, I tried to explain why I was messing around with my boat for hours without end and not getting bored to my cousins. That was quite a pointless conversation as they just didn't get the fact that I enjoyed building things.

Btw, I am on vacation in New Smyrna Florida - somewhere in your neck of the woods I presume?
That is the reason I have not made any headway on the hovercraft project, I have been messing around with my jet boat while on vacation. Nothing like relaxing on the beach and trying to epoxy a Jet drive in place without getting any sand in there.

&lt;meta http-equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">&lt;title&gt;</title&gt;&lt;meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 2.4 (Linux)"> <style type="text/css"> <! @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.</style><font color="#000000"><font color="#000000">Well, after my long hiatus, I have returned, with some goodies if I may add. When I did some test runs with the craft on asphalt, the rear end dragged A LOT due to the heavy 550 motor. moving was VERY slow (walking pace at best) and I was left with a dilemma. Should I keep it like this and use it as a slow show-boat, or should I stick brushless power and make it work, regardless of appearance? Afterwards, I hooked up my 540 mamba 5700 motor to the craft and speed was a bit better, although the skirt seemed to drag significantly more (my guess is that the more powerful motor was directing most of its thrust downward, causing the nose to be pushed down). A bit discouraged, I let the project sit on the shelf for a few weeks... which turned into months with the start of school. Since then, I have brought a jet boat into this world, and have messed around with my airboat. Then, prior to Christmas, there was a house-wide clean up, where I re-discovered my hovercraft. Seeing it hover again was quite awesome and ignited my interest again. Afterall, I was so close to finishing it before I ditched it! Or so I thought...
After reassessing the state of the craft, all of this feeling went away. The motor mount had to be redone to accommodate the greater thrust of the brushless motors, and the puny little 380's driving the fans had to go. A week before Christmas, I made a dual order for presents... and let my parents choose what they thought would be a better gift. It was between an upgrade for the airboat, or the hovercraft. Knowing that the answer would come after Christmas, I waited patiently (the package was coming from Hong Kong and paying an extra $20 isn't worth the week it shaves off of transit time). Today, they arrived! It was the hovercraft motors and speed controllers. I installed them quickly and did some lift tests. This is where the good news ends.
Sadly, those fans which I made were not balanced at all... this wasn't as evident at the low rpms of the brushed 380's, but the high rpms of the bl setup shattered one.
Now I have a decision to make... I have two 3500 kV motors and two 40 amp speed controllers sitting around, as well as a servo driver. Do I try to fix this hovercraft somehow, or do I just use them somewhere else and terminate this project? I really hate to see it go, but I am at a loss of ideas right now... I could just shelve it again...
anyways, some pics:</font></font></meta&gt;</meta&gt;

Well, never mind about all of that, I think I may have found a solution:
Since the fans will not suffice, I will rip them out and have a prop do the lifting for me. I have two motors and ESCs, so I can have one for the lift fan, and the other for forward thrust. This seems to be how the smaller hovercraft are being made right now, so I figure it wouldn't hurt to give it a try... will post updates soon as I have all day to work on it today. If I am lucky, I will be able to get a hovering video by tomorrow! If not, well.... then we can have an airboat that looks like a hovercraft

You might look for the impeller from an electric fan setup. You may be able to buy just the impeller and that should make a good lift fan. Dennis

Ah, yes, that is worth a try. A four inch PC fan or something a bit larger than that might work as well. right now, I figured I would just see what happens with the stuff Iallready have lying around.

UPDATE: I have finished making the duct for the lift fan. I made it out of a 1/8" plexiglass strip which I heated with a blow torch and formed into a cylinder. This was then cut in some areas so it would fit the front of the hovercraft. While that was being epoxied into place (with a water tight seal just in case the lift fan dies) I decided to work on the motor mount for the forward thrust motor. This was also made of plexiglass, 1/4", and supported by a peice of treated pine to handle the extra thrust generated by the bl motor. It was then painted blue to match the duct. While waiting for the paint to dry, I decided to reinforce the mounting of the duct, using gorilla glue to attach if to a pink unsulation foam base. This was shielded with 1/8" white abs sheet, and formed a sturdy base to mount the motor mount to.

The next steps will be to install the motor mount for the forward thrust motor and test all systems. Afterwards, I will start paying attention to the body of the hovercraft and its water-going characteristics.

Some more pics, with lift motor installed

Hmm... I am having some issues with the paint on the motor stand - it seems to be peeling off/crinkling...
I have removed it and scuffed up the plexiglass... will have another go at it tomorrow, maybe in white this time.

Well, something did the trick... I am not sure whether it was scuffing the plexiglass or the white paint (which happens to cost 96 cents a can), but now the motor stand is ready. I mounted it to the duct by using three 2" screws and epoxy, so it should not be going anywhere anytime soon. While waiting for the epoxy to set, I cut 5/16" strips of rubber gasket material in order to sheild the edges of the hovercraft, especially when I am driving inside the house (My mom made me do it). Then, I made some scoops for the front console, because my guess is that the slots on its front face are not going to provide nearly enough air for the lifting prop. Hover test tomorrow if time allows!

Well, didn't have much time yesterday, had to stay after school and help design a robot (robotics club)
However, I did get some work done today. I finished glueing the rubber strips around the perimeter and also added some 45 degree angle pine strips allong the opening of the top "hatch" which should help keep water out if the boat gets swamped in "heavy seas". I also added a steering wheel so Ken can control his craft!
Lastly, and most importantly, I found a crystal with which I could replace the broken one on my 4 channel reciever (a little mishap with a propeller, shall we say?). I set up the hovercraft to run on 4 channels, the left stick controlling hovering and the right stick controlling turning and forward motion. When running, I found the separate channel for the lift motor indispensable, as it was a very effective method of braking. The biggest surprise (besides the fact that it actually hovered) was how little throttle I needed to attain a decent speed. The fastest speed that it has hit so far was achieved with only 35% throttle and a similar amount of lift. All of the electronics remained cold (did I mention it was a nice 28 degrees outside?) and everything functioned well... time to modify Ken's cockpit for running (add more holes in the front console as it is restricting airflow to the lift fan) and then add some pink insulation foam to the inside the of the skirt wells to make it float without the lift fan running. Some more aesthetic touches and she will be finished! Well, it is functional now, I just need to add some minor details.

Here is the link to a short video of running on the street. (wonder how fast this thing can go with WOT?)
Some very bad driving

I may even want to experiment with a direction holding gyro to help with straight line performance.

Cool video, great build.

Thanks! I would like to think so myself!

afterall, not every street has a hovercraft racing along it!

as a side note... RTR, the hovercraft weighs in at slightly under 1600 grams... that's about 3.5 pounds. That weight includes Ken and about 150-200 grams of little "acessories"

Nice job! You've got some skills. Keep those vids coming[8D]

Well, I have done a bit of improvements on the original design, adressing some problems that came up...
First I cut out two foam floats which fit nicely inside the skirts. This greatly improved floatation, and now I can shut off the lift fan and have the hovercraft function like an airboat incase something bad happens. That is also why I added the funnel-looking duct ring in the lift duct, as the water comes up through there but does not spill over... this drasticly reduces the amount of weight the craft has to support if it becomes waterlogged for some reason. It also aids in directing a bit more flow to the skirt, making it more firm. After these improvements, I ran it a bit in the tub and on the street and noticed an interesting phenomena... The rocks on the street had a sort of attraction to the lift fan, pinging around there and chipping the prop... not good! I installed a mesh on the bottom and changed the prop to a three-blader. Although it is a bit louder than the previous setup, the sound kind-of reminds me of a jet, which is always nice

After covering the basic improvements, I started with the cosmetics. I modified the top cockpit and added some more air vents. This about equals the area of the lift duct, barely affecting the handling. Now it is possible to run with the "top" on. An interesting side note - there seems to be a slight vent between the top of the lift duct and the top cockpit, creating an air current through the electronics compartment and out the rear mesh hump in the back. this effectively cools the ESC's by at least 10 degrees, although they are nowhere near hot anyways. After that was done, I rerouted the electronics and tidied them up. Lastly, to improve range, I CA'ed a flexible rubber tubing around the edge of the forward thrust duct, and routed the antenna through it. This really helped with range without messing with the outward appearance of the craft. I will do some more testing, this time on the snow this saturday (I hope!) and then I may add some other scale details. However, I may just leave it as simple as it is right now, as everything looks clean and simple.

videos may be coming if it snows!

More pics:

Well, we got some snow, perhaps a bit more than we needed... still havent measured it but it looks like 12"-15".
should be able to get some runs in today, assuming that it stops snowing before it gets dark!

In the meantime I made some cockpit adjustments, adding some dials and a key switch. The dials were a PITA becaue they are so small (about 3/8" diameter).
I used a heated 1/2" diameter copper pipe to cut the blanks from a peice of 1/8" plexiplass. This method created a raised lip which I ground down slightly to create a uniform appearance. Then I painted the silver backing on one side of the plexiglass and the arrows and indicators on the other. This gives it a nice 3-d appearence.

sadly, the snow was too powdery and the craft just sunk down in it, forming a 2" deep cavity out of which it could not get out of...
oh well, maybe get some runs in when the snow starts to get more compact, so it can support the weight. BTW, running on pavement is really nice, just having some issues with Lipos and the cold... seem to not give the same amount of output @ 24 degrees F as they do at room temp...

either way, I am dying to get some WATER runs with this baby, but the way things are going with weather I may have to wait for another month!

Any luck with the water runs? I am in the process of building a hovercraft myself. I think i will tear mine apart and steal aspects of your design as i only have parts from a GuanLi A-10 to use. I will use the hull shape maybe and ill take a closer look at your skirt picture to model mine after it. Thanks for posting all this build it is great help for my rookiness.

well, as I posted in your thread I have not had much time with this thing... I am a junior in highschool (and we all know how anoying junior year is) and have a few projects runnign at the same time. Currently I am waiting for an order from hobbycity - a 2.4ghz conversion for my futaba radio (it has horrendous range) and a headlock gyro to help with sliding turns. It was shipped yesterday so about nine days form now I should get it. When you build your hovercraft, I would make the hull a bit taller - mine could use another half-inch now that I think of it. This is just insurance if your lift fan dies and your hovercraft turns into a boat. With mine, the water comes rught up to the lip of the lifting duct and any rough water would probably end up flowing over.

It's been years since I've seen anybody here take interest in building a hobby grade hovercraft. The hovercraft build I saw 6 years ago had an articulated driver figure that actually tilts right when the hovercraft's rudder turns left and right when the rudder turns left (countersteering). You should have tried running this hovercraft on ice. I've enjoyed running my LCAC hovercraft on ice.
It's like watching a huge hockey puck moving along at 15 MPH.

Nice build BTW..[sm=thumbs_up.gif]

Thanks!
I didn't really want to do any ice running since my radio range was rather limited... and I don't want to end up getting stuck in the middle of a pond on thin ice! (and this thing goes fast enough on asphalt, so ice would be just plain scary). Anyways, I finally got my 2.4ghz conversions for my Futaba radios (long story short, their range SUCKED). This way I was able to convert my fleet of fairly nice futaba computer radios without dishing out another $400-$500 for new radios. The order consisted of two DIY conversion kits, two 8-channel receivers, and two 4-channel recievers. I also bought a headlock gyro. All of this added up to $100 plus $20 shipping. Not too bad for a complete overhaul. The DIY kits were very easy to install, and within an hour of receiving the package I had converted my 4-channel and 2pl to 2.4ghz. Then I turned my attention to the hovercraft, which had gotten a bit dusty on the shelf. I modded the gyro a bit (mostly to secure it inside its case - what do you expect for $13?) and then installed the 8-channel receiver. After hooking up the gyro and ESCs, I fired her up and went outside. To my amazement, the gyro worked wonders! The turns were crisp and controlled, and I didn't have to countersteer coming out of them. Straight line performance was just that - a straight line! I think this was the best 13 bucks I have spent for this project. The radio conversion was awesome as well! The range was rediculous, as I drove the craft so far down the street that I lost sight of it, and it never even showed signs of glitching. I will do some more running on land, and if there are no problems, then I will be confident enough with all of the systems to take them out on the water. Overall, I am a very happy camper! Oh, and getting 5 on my APCalc mock exam helps to.

They say you get what you pay for... so lets hope these components last. Thanks to them, I have raised two awesome radios form the dead - and I converted them to run 3s lipos instead of AAs in the process.

BTW, if you look really closely at the gyro, it says "CYRO" ... sigh... I might have to take that sticker off now...

Well, I am back to this thread because I just can't stand having this thing laying on my table... and with about 30 minutes of video footage on my hard drive. So I made a video. No water trials yet, I know, I promised them but was very busy with my other boats and a tricopter over the summer to take Ken out to the pool... I did get some decent runs in though, and even GPS'd it at 32 mph, which I thoght to be rather impressive, considering the extra weight of both the camera and the gps. The video in itself is not a great one for performance shots, it is more of an "artistic arrangement" with a soundtrack, but I think you guys may like it. The high pitched scream of the three bladed lift prop spinning 26000 rpms gets pretty annoying and is amplified by the onboard camera microphone. Wonder if anyone else will get together an rc hovercraft? Sure would be interesting to see another build!

www.youtube.com/watch