Back when I received my x500 kit from Palaform it arrived with a lift duct to play with. I decided not to use it at the time as I just wanted to build the kit as standard but I decided it was time to experiment with it.
I started by deciding on the location of the duct and making it out with a compass. I cut Continue reading x500 independent lift conversion
I recently received a 4 blade propeller in the post to try out on my Gemini craft. Going from my experiences with my smaller craft it should be quieter and more powerful. Well it certainly seems more powerful but its a lot louder! There’s also another issue where its drawing so many amps that the ESC seems to be getting too hot and cutting out. I am not surprised really and even the wires themselves are getting hot! I think I will switch back to the 2 blade for now.
After a major downpour on Friday I stumbled across a flooded car park which I thought would be perfect for testing my e-Gemini on water. The craft performs remarkably well, hovering gracefully and turning on six pence. As you can see I am still getting used to the handling. 🙂
Here is my first go at piloting the craft. It feels a bit nicer to control compared to the smaller craft because of its extra weight and size. I have not used it enough yet to know whether or not I need to adjust the center of gravity. It may look a little twitchy in the video but I was trying to keep it in a small area away from any cars so did not give it a proper straight line test.
Something I forgot show in my previous post is the electronics under the hovercraft seat.
Here we have a 5000mah 3 cell Lipo so plenty of speed and runtime. This connects to a brushless motor ESC which connects to the brushless motor and receiver. The receiver is an ar600 aircraft receiver. Aside from sending control inputs to the ESC it is also connected to a servo at the rear of the craft to control the rudders. A servo extension cable was required because of the distance and the fact the cable had to be run around the duct in order to make sure it was safely away from the propeller.
Funnily enough the e-Gemini was the first hovercraft kit that I brought way back in 2013. Unfortunately because of the space required to build it and the fact it looked a little overwhelming back then I have put it off till now.
The kit requires a lot of manual Continue reading Getting back to the e-Gemini
After having success with the X500 build I decided to look back at my fusion 400 which was not running so well. As you can see from the video below it is leaning to one side and not fully inflating Continue reading Bringing the fusion 400 into line
I took my X500 hovercraft out for its first run on land at the weekend. Before I took it out some 6 blade propellers arrived. (Scroll down for videos)
I was expected the motor to choke on these or something Continue reading X500 Hovercraft test run 6 blade prop
I recently visited the Hovercraft Museum for Hovershow 2016 and it reignited my desire to build an R/C Hovercraft. I went for the top spec Continue reading Fusion 400 Hovercraft Build
Over the weekend I decided to focus on the lower hull of this kit. That way I could start playing about with the electronics and get the thing moving.
The first thing to do was to start masking areas that should not be painted. These are areas where the wheels will be attached Continue reading Tamiya 1:35 King Tiger Radio Electronics and Lower Hull
I was not expecting the beetle to be able to wheelie but it does quite well!
Shane's Shed 