DIY Hovercraft

Instruction Manual: Make a DIY Hovercraft (Perpetual motion)

Group Members:

Wang Zexu, Xu Ziling, Liu Bisheng, Zhu Hua, Geng Yajie

Materials of the frame and skirt

● Depron board

● Plastic foam

● Duct tape

Material for power units:

● Ducted fan

● Two 78-mm blade propellers

● Two 7-mm coreless motors

● 11.1V Li-ion battery

● 700mA Li-ion battery

● Electronic Speed Controller

● Motor Driver Board

● Voltage regulator module

Materials for remote control:

● Arduino Mega2580 Board

● PS2 remote controller and receiver

Tools

● Art knife

● Multi-meter

● Hot melt glue gun

● Insulated rubber tape

● Screw driver

● Ruler

● DuPont wires

1. Design the shape of the base which consists of a square and a semicircle. The length of a square’s side is 20cm, and the radius of the semicircle is 10cm. Pierce a hole to hold the fan.

2. Use the computer to draw the diagram of the base.

3. Copy the diagram into a laser cutting machine to cut the depron board into the designed shape.

4.Use an art knife to cut a piece of plastic foam of 5 cm thick. Cut it into the same shape as the base.

5.Open a square hole in the center of the plastic foam. Leave a 3cm frame of the plastic foam.

6.Stick the plastic foam to the depron board with a hot melt glue gun.

Attention:

1.The laser cutting machine is dangerous, so ask the help of the professional operators.

2.The muzzle of the glue gun is hot and can burn your skin, so be careful when using it.

Construct the lifting system

1. Cut four pieces of 50*56 mm2 depron boards with scissors.

2. Use hot melt glue to stick the depron boards 1cm lower to the ducted fan.

3. Stick the ducted fan onto the base with hot melt glue.

4. Attach the ducted fan to the electronic speed controller with DuPont wires.

Construct the propulsion system

1. Stick the brushed motor on the rear of the base with hot melt glue and insulated rubber tape.
2. Cut a 15*100 mm2 depron board with scissors.
3. Stick the board into the gap between the brushed motor and the base to stabilize the brushed motor
4. Attach the wires of the brushed motor to the yellow battery

Construct the turning system

1.Install the drag blades onto the coreless motors.

2.Assemble each coreless motor onto the plastic frame.

3.Cut four pieces of 10*50 mm2 depron boards and stick every two of them.

4.Attach each plastic frame onto the board.

1.Connect the ESC and the Arduino board with a DuPont wire.

2.Attach two coreless motors onto a motor driver board.Then use two DuPont wires to connect ENA, ENB ports on the driver board with the Arduino board

3.Connect the PS2 wireless module and the Arduino board.

4.Program the buttons on the PS2 controller. Set circle and square to control the ducted fan and set left and right to turn the direction of the hovercraft.

Introduction to the circuits in details

The remote-control-hovercraft requires one circuit, with specialized functions:

1.The Arduino circuit: Receives signals from the remote controller.

Controls the two coreless motors by the DC-Motor controlling module.

Controls the speed of the brushless motor through the speed controller.

2.Power:

• Arduino Board and Coreless Motors shares the +9.6V DC battery.

• Brushless Motor and Speed controller shares the 11.2 V DC battery.

• Arduino board provides electricity for the DC-Motor Controlling Module and Wireless Module.

• The Remote Controller uses two AAA batteries.

3.The lifting system consists of a ducted fan (V04 Changesun RC50/11 50mm EDF) and a 40A speed control.

4.The propeller system contains a 55mm 370 ducted brush fan.
5.TheDirection-controlling system contains two coreless motors and a MH910 DC motor driver board. The two coreless motors are the same. We denote them as MOTOR1 and MOTOR2

Connect the materials.

(I) Connect the wireless PS2 module

1. Connect PIN1 of the wireless module to PWM12 of the Arduino board.

2. Connect PIN2 of the module to PWM11 of the Arduino board.

3. Connect PIN4 of the module to GND of the Arduino board.

4. Connect PIN5 of the module to 3.3V of the Arduino board.

5. Connect PIN6 of the module to PWM10 of the Arduino board.

6. Connect PIN7 of the module to PWM13 of the Arduino board.
(II). Connect the lifting system

1. Attach the male banana plugs of the brushless motor to the female banana plugs of the speed control.

2. Connect the T plug of the motor with the T plug of
the 1550mAh battery.

3. Connect the white wire of the speed control to PWM8 of the Arduino board and the Black wire to PIN1 of the bread board.

4. Connect PIN3 of the bread board to GND of the
Arduino board.

(III). Connect the propeller system

Attach the plug of the brush motor to the plug of the yellow battery.

(IV). Connect the direction-controlling system

1. Connect +5V of the driver board to +5V of the Arduino board.

2. Connect VIN of the driver board to OUT+ of the voltage regulator module, and connect the GND on the VIN side to OUT- of the voltage regulator module.

3. Connect IN+ of the driver board to the positive of the 1550mAh battery, and IN- to the negative of the battery. Use a voltage meter to adjust the regulator module until the output voltage equals +7.5V.

4. Connect the GND on the +5V side of the driver board with PIN2 of the bread board.

5. Connect IN1 of the driver board with PWM7 of the Arduino board.

6. Connect IN2 of the driver board with PWM4 of the Arduino board.

7. Connect IN3 of the driver board with PWM3 of the Arduino board.

8. Connect IN4 of the driver board with PWM2 of the Arduino board.

9. Connect PIN1 of MOTOR1 to OUT1 of the driver board.

10. Connect PIN2 of MOTOR1 to OUT2 of the driver board.

11. Connect PIN1 of MOTOR2 to OUT3 of the driver board.

12. Connect PIN2 of MOTOR2 to OUT4 of the driver board.

13. Attach ENA of the driver board to PWM6 of the Arduino board.

14. Attach ENB of the driver board to PWM5 of the Arduino board.

1. Adjust the rotating speed of the ducted fan to decrease the friction and save the power.

2. If the hovercraft rotates, change the rotating speed of two coreless motors.

3. Change the speed of the coreless motors to make the hovercraft turn.

More details about the code is in the PDF attached.

Thanks for reading!