The Shipyard ( Dry Dock ): Builds & Questions > Hovercraft
1/12 SRN6
TomHugill:
Firstly I can't take any credit for this, I bought it part built off live steam enthusiast that had run out of inspiration to finish it. I did some minor work to it and Woz 3D printed me a lift fan. Sadly this was where the project stalled.
That is till a chap called Dave in Dover offered to finish her for me.
Scale is roughly 1:12, it's a big beast over a meter long. I'm taking delivery next week all being well so I'll get some more footage then.
Some pictures of how she's progressed.
As I bought her:
To this:
I picked it up from Dover and got it home with the help of HS1 and virgin trains (had afew intresting looks carrying it from St Pancras to Euston and through Manchester!). First test showed the lift fan was doing the job and it was hovering well on 3s. The thrust however was lacking, it moved ok on a flat surface but didn't have the omph to make quick course corrections, struggled over rough transitions and didn't respond well to steering. Also I was getting a fair bit of vibration through the coupler (which was solid) and the drive shaft.
First item on the agenda was a new thrust motor as the existing one couldn't updated to 3s. Whilst I was at it I figured I would get bigger lift motor. Mated to these are two 80a fan cooled esc.
New vs old.
Yet to run it for any length of time so we will see how run times are. Currently using 2 3s 5ah lipos, one for lift and one for thrust. Should the lift motor be drain the battery too quickly I have another pack which I can add to bring it upto 10ah.
Here's a quick video of it with new motive power
[video]https://youtu.be/1dDrMyGDzy4[/video]
I stripped out the old drive shaft and coupler and got a new one made to the correct size. Using the solid coupler to get the alignment right before I glued everything in, then using a a coupler with a rubber insert to reduce vibration.
New lift motor installed
As she's stands now
Unfortunately I'm still a "xxxxx" poor pilot and had a little accident involving going sideways into next doors car :(
But she's now back together and ready for an inaugural trip on the lake.
Big Ada:
So you live somewhere in the Manchester area.
It always helps if you put that sort of thing in your Profile.
Len, Model Boat Association Dover, Scale Secretary.
I am building a Griffon 2000TDX Hovercraft at the Moment.
ballastanksian:
Gorgeous model Tom :-))
Sub driver:
Hi Tom.
I was wondering if you had done anything with that, you should find that you use more of the thrust battery than the lift one as you can usually back of the lift motor quite considerably once you have built up the air pressure in the skirt and Plenum chamber as you need only replace the air that is leaking between the skirt edge and the medium you are running on where you will use a lot of thrust 90% of the time.
On my hovercraft models i usually use two thrust batteries to one lift battery due to this.
What is the size of the 4 bladed prop ?
With an 1800kv motor on 11.1v i would think the prop range would be an 8x4 or 7x3 Two bladed prop for max thrust with a 4 blade you generally go down a size and pitch to take into account of the extra blades....just a thought ...dont want you to over prop the motor and fry it....i have seen this done at our lake motor went up in smoke...due to overpropping it O0
Regards Sub
TomHugill:
Hey Chris, intresting observations regarding the lift fan, I've only briefly tried it on the lake in unfavourable conditions so more testing will be needed. The prop is a 10x6 cut down to 9". I'm using an NTM 3536 motor, seems to have a fair bit more grunt than the only one (should do at 3x stated power of the old one!). It was warm but not boiling after my run so should hopefully be ok
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version