Build a Hovercraft at Home!

Hovercrafts offer a new and exciting way of transportation and movement! Since they minimize ground contact, there is less friction and surface resistance, optimizing it for speed. You are limited only by the power of your fans and batteries (and a smooth surface to run I suppose :)). There's a lot of stuff you can do with it, so feel free to add your own touches!

Note: I drew a lot of inspiration from the unphazyed kit linked here. Check it out, its really cool and helpful with tons of resources!

1x Garbage bag

2x Switches

2x XT60 connecters

2x 12V 2000mAh batteries

1x Lift Fan

1x Push Fan

2x Fan Grills

1x 100 Watt Rheostat

1x Wooden dowel

1x 3d printed base (file included below)

1x 3d printed Rheostat holder (file included below - this was from the unphazyed kit)

12x Wire connectors

You can print out the 3d models for the base and rheostat holder here! These were all modeled using Autodesk's Fusion360 software.

Note that you may have to adjust some of the dimensions to match your fans if you get different ones than the ones I used.

Completely open the garbage bag and lie it flat on a surface. Place Your 3d printed base on it and trace the outline with a 1 inch padding. Cut it out and tape it to the base like shown above.

Place the push fan in the back slot on the base. Line up the fan grill outside it and insert screw through both. Fasten securely with a nut and repeat steps for the lift fan. Also stick the dowel in the extruded hole in front (this will be for later on in case you want to attach weights to the craft to experiment with weigh distributions and effect on speed).

At the top of the lift fan, there will be 2 holes. Line those up with the corresponding ones on the rheostat holder and insert a screw through both. Fasten securely with a nut. Next apply super glue to the rim of the rheostat and place it in the holder. Let dry until attached.

Take one of your batteries and attach the leads to two 1-port connectors. Attach the leads of the XT60 connectors to the other end, making sure that the red wire is with the other red wire and the black wire is with the other black wire. Repeat the same process with your other battery.

Take the wire attached to the push fan and trim off the end adapter. Then insert the black wire into one 2-port wire connector and the red wire into another one, like shown above (ignore the blue wire). Take one of the switches and insert the red and black wires into the same 2-port wire connectors as earlier, making sure to match the red wire with red wire and the black wire with black wire. Then, on the other end of the switch, use two 1-port connectors to attach an XT60 connector and plug that into the one mounted on your battery (make sure your switch is set to off!).

Take the wire attached to the lift fan and trim off the end adapter. Then take your unused switch and attach its red wire to the near tail of the rheostat using a 1-port connector. Use the other tail of the rheostat and connect that to the red wire from the fan with another 1-port connector. Then use another 1-port connector to attach the black wire from the fan to the black wire of the switch. On the other end of the switch, use two 1-port connectors to attach a XT60 connector and use that to plug in your battery (make sure your switch is set to off!).

Inflate the skirt and punch holes into it with a needle. This allows the air from the fan to go through the skirt and make the hovercraft "float". Without this step, the hovercraft is not likely to move.

After punching in the holes, you're all done. Use the dowel to stack weights and mess around with weight distribution and rheostat to adjust the voltage level going to the skirt and see how that influences performance. Or, as a challenge, you could try rewiring the rheostat to control the push motor and experiment with speed that way!

Aaand that's it! Your hovercraft is now fully functional, and all that's left to do now is to test and iterate on it.

Happy building!