Yea, I'm building a hovercraft, two, actually. One will be small and radio controlled, I have all of the parts except a battery box for the receiver, which I can buy at Radio Shack. It's made out of a buch of spare parts and scrapped rc vehicles. It is powered by an rc plane engine/prop, which will directly connect to a rechargable battery. The receiver will control one fan for propulsion and use a servo for rudder control. The nice thing is the receiver/transmitter combo I'm using has a 54 MHz frequency, while most modern rc toys are 27 MHz or 49 MHz. I'll post pics when I'm done.

The second is a full size hovercraft, 4 feet wide and 8 feet long. (the size of a sheet of plywood) It will be powered by a gas yard blower, which I am going to get my grandma's (she is moving and wont need it). I still need to find a place to buy some nylon from, there's no place here in town that has some. (not even the fabric stores). I'll post pics of this too, but it will be a while before this one is done. The small one should be done in a week if I don't have much homework. :)

Sounds cool!

Forgive my ignorance, but how do you get your remote control to work with the servos you bought?

I didn't buy the servos, my dad gave them to me with the receiver/transmitter I am using. The servos pulg straight into the receiver. :)

I've made some progress on it, I almost have the hull finished. All I need to do is make and attach the skirt, and it should work. Then it's on to the control system.

Close up of the motor and switch:


EDIT: made the images smaller. :lol:

Another update. It works, and it hovers nicely. Now I am working on the propulsion, two small fans canabalized from an R/C boat. I have a battery, then a reheostat, which goes to the two fan motors. I had them hooked up in series, then decided to go to parallel. Sadly, after a few seconds of testing it, the reheostat started smoking. I remembered that the reheostat I bought (from RadioShack) was only rated at 3 watts max, which my motors were exceeding. And that was the biggest reheostat they had, so I'm a sitting duck. I'm going to have to buy an expensive electronic throttle, unless I am able to salvage the original vehicle the fans went with. Time to go check. :)

Sweet. This sounds really cool. I didn't really it was possible, but I guess it is. Make sure you post some pics after it's done! One question: How will you control it with a remote? Most remotes are only two directions: forwards/backwards and left/right. But don't you want it to be able to go up and down as well? Or would that not work?

B)

Up and down? That's just a common misconception. Hovercrafts float on a cushion of air, and that cushion of air is limited by the height of the skirt. A lower skirt is more stable, but can't clear as many obstacles. A larger skirt is the opposite. So the only things I need to control are the two fans on the back, the lift fan is just a simple switch.

I was able to salvage the original vehicle the fans went with, and it all works, all I need to do is attach it. The reason I didn't use it in the first place is that the control scheme is different. When you turn, one fan slows down and the other speeds up, while I was trying to achieve a rudder the other way.

And you'll get more than pics, I have a video camera. I have to do some chores and other things, so I might have it finished sometime this afternoon. :)

In other words, hovercrafts don't fly. ;)

Nice, I had plans to build a hovercraft once aupon a time, but never got around to it.

Last year I had to build a hovercraft for a science class project. Almost nobody's moved. Most of them just sort of pathetically scooted across the table. I'm glad to hear that yours is working out fine though.

Was it one of those balloon ones? The best way to make a balloon hovercraft:

1. Wait until you get a free trail of AOL in the mail (or grab one from mcdonalds). Do not toss it in the fireplace, burn it, snap it in half, etc.
2. Take a top from a sport top bottle and superglue (or plastic glue or something) to the middle of the cd so that the part you screw on is right on top of the hole in the middle of the cd.
3. Stick a balloon over the cap.
4. Blow up the balloon from the bottom.
5. Close the sport top (you won't be able to see it, but you should know where it is).
6. Set the hovercraft on a VERY flat surface (table).
7. Open the sport top and give it a little push!

I think it's funner to snap/burn/otherwise destroy it :P

It was from a kit that used motors. Though balloons would probably work better :lol: . The motors stunk though, and we weren;t allowed to use different ones. You could stick your finger onto the blade of the propeller and not care.

That explains it. ;)

I've probably built... 10 or so balloon hovercrafts throught my youth, and I can tell you that the CD method is the best I've tried.

Well, the small one didn't work, but I know why. The fan wasn't the right type, which I knew from the beginning, but I didn't think it would be that much of a problem. With almost no thrust at the center of the fan and space around the edges, all the air escaped back out. I should've used a centrifugal fan, which is why most larger homemade hovercrafts use vacuum fans or yard blowers.

Well, now I'm going to attempt the larger one, because I have a yard blower for the lift engine. I purchased the rest of the needed parts for basic lift last weekend, and after this weekend I won't have any more homework, and school will get out in 6 days. So I should have time to start next week.