The skirt is like a slanted round tire, filled from the open side where it's attached to the hull. Air escapes through vents and along the seam between the skirt and the bottom of the hull to form an air cushion under the hovercraft .
The case fan which pressurizes the skirt and air cushion.
The linkage between the micro servo and the propeller support is a bent paperclip. The propeller is mounted on a section of shelf standard, which in turn is on a bearing scavenged from an old hard drive.
Inspired by RC Test Flight's trash bag hovercraft.
Although turning the propeller (instead of using rudder vanes) is atypical, it worked well.
Many hovercraft, especially small racing hovercraft, have finger skirts. They also feature a bow partition and a rear flap. Various RC hovercraft have also been made with this design.
References:
Most of these were spare or repurposed parts.
Part | Cost / Source | Notes |
---|---|---|
Motor: Turnigy 1450KV Brushless | $20 from HobbyKing | This motor was way overpowered for this application; I stayed almost exclusively at ~5% throttle. It, the propeller, and the ESC were purchased for a plane. |
Propeller | $2 from HobbyKing | |
ESC: Turnigy Plush 60A | $35 from HobbyKing | |
XT60 Battery Connectors | $3 from SparkFun | for the battery &damp; ESC, and to make an extender between the ESC and battery with a splice in for the case fan |
Case Fan | $26 from NewEgg | 120mm fan, provided ample air pressure and flow, rated 2A@12V, 190CFM, 17.8mmH2O, 370g (specs at DigiKey) |
Servo Motor | $10 from Adafruit | |
Paper Clip | linkage from servo to shelf standard with drive propeller | |
Shelf Standards | ~$3 from a local hardware store | |
Bearing | from an old (~100MB) hard drive | actually the HD motor, but had convenient mounting holes / screws |
Cardboard | free / scrap | |
Plexiglass, wood block | free / scrap | used to make a rigid mounting structure for the steering assembly |
Nuts and Bolts | $5 for 6-32 socket-head machine screws and matching nylock nuts from servocity.com | |
Trash Bag (33 gallon "outdoor" bag) | 25¢ ($5/20) | for the skirt; showed no obvious signs of wear from use on asphalt after a couple hours |
Duct Tape | ||
Spray Paint | white base and clear protective finish; for water protection |
And, shared with other R/C vehicles:
2.4GHz RC Tx/Rx | $30 from HobbyKing | only 2 channels used |
12v LiPo Battery (5AH) | $30 from HobbyKing | sufficient for at least an hour running the hovercraft; a smaller battery would work just as well |
LiPo Balance Charger | $25 from HobbyKing |
Frame pieces cut out.
Glued and clamped.
Painted.
To join the cylindrical segments of the skirt, the edges of the flat plastic sections must be cut as a sine wave.
Frame with plastic cut for skirt. I used many short pieces of duct tape to join the curved seam between the plastic sections.
2014-09-06
In: Misc
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