Mini 3D Printed Hovercraft

3D printing isn't just about prototyping, it can also be used to produce unique parts that couldn't be manufactured 'easily' by any other method. As far as I am aware (correct me if I am wrong), the hollow ducts of this hovercraft frame couldn't be manufactured in ONE piece using any other manufacturing technique.
3D printer STL files will be coming next week!! I want to improve on the skirt type and a few various other things before releasing the stl files. The stl files will be available to all of my Patreon supporters. However, if you don't wish to support me via Patreon, I've started uploading my stl files to Gumroad: gumroad.com/to...
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[@Nighthawkinlight]

I tried making an rc hovercraft way back by repurposing cheap rc car parts and a cardboard frame. Not quite powerful enough. Now that I've got a so far unused 3d printer sitting on a shelf I might give this another try. Great video.

[@carneeki]

Using starlite filament? :D

[@Curttygaming]

use a garbage bag or something dont use starlite filament its to thick

[@YTYTYTYT78]

@@carneeki kkjjjjijjjiiikkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiii1 1

[@alexandermcclure6185]

@@YTYTYTYT78Alright little Timmy, go back to eating your own feces and give your mother her phone back.

[@williamosman]

18:37 Kitty!!!!

[@xXAddictedMiner64Xx]

wow, thats a lot of beees!

[@ledfed1912]

Poop!

[@nathanreder308]

William I'm subscribed to you

[@JyLMGroup]

OSMAN! #notacrab

[@tannerconstantine2733]

William Osman Yep, it is a lot of bees

[@sohansunku1016]

Your design is so perfect! Everything just fits and it makes me so happy. Can you do a video in the future where you show us your workflow when designing something like this?

[@norsebavarian1941]

Just from an industrial design point of view only that model is truly an elegant design. The integrated servo mount and wire channels are a step above! Well done sir.

[@FullTiltOn]

Dual rudder for sure- Your hovercraft is working perfectly if it is hard to control (that was an interesting rudder hack and yes throttle=steering)! As a long time hovercraft enthusiast it takes practice and some nerve to pilot and even with many years experience things can get dicey ;)

[@Curttygaming]

your so dumb he fixed the problem

[@winindowsdows]

@@Curttygaming Actually read the comment

[@SecondLifeDesigner]

You could make a 3 rudder design where the middle rudder pivots and the outer two rudders are simply attached to the middle rudder and set backwards a bit making a diamond formation which will allow full range of rotation your original single rudder has.

[@jrotor3301]

Your projects never disappoint. Love the research you put in and explain to us. Nice job Tom!

[@SimpleElectronics]

Probably nothing you haven't heard before - amazing design, great print, great idea and amazing execution - 10/10 - simply awesome!

[@gikar1948]

I watch many RC plane channels and multi rotor channels and yours is right at the top of my list. You and FliteTest are the best. Keep up the great work you are doing.

[@tissuepaper9962]

David Bischof Flite Test dropped significantly on my list when they lost the European. I really enjoyed his stuff

[@doodxv1057]

TissuePaper the Swedish guy? yeah I miss him

[@wendtb]

I hope you have PeterSripol on your list also.

[@_cat5085]

Peter siprol too

[@LeoFPV]

Tom Stanton uploads a video... day improved

[@smp1990]

9001% -- thats over 9000!

[@Del350K4]

It´s true, isn´t it? Tom offers a unique type of "thinking man´s" flight-based RC vid, well laced with 3D printing and leavened with plenty of concise yet thorough explanations. It was his superb video on vortex generators (on a VTOL) that got me hooked on his channel and I´ve had my day improved by each and every video he´s posted ever since.

[@smp1990]

could not agree more!

[@letsgocamping88]

You can tell that Tom carefully researches a good proportion of the theory behind his projects.

[@KingJellyfishII]

I agree

[@SUVRVing]

Looks great! I hope you try version 2 over water :)

[@mbuggin1976]

Your videos are so well made. Your explanation is not only informative but preemptively assumes all arguments.

[@jayrothwell]

Oh, very nice! Looking forward to trying this one out! Thanks Tom!

[@AeroCraftAviation]

That servo and motor mount using one bolt is a truly beautiful thing! An engenius design! I love it!

[@WildeFyre69]

There are few things more satisfying to watch than a bin bag skirt hovercraft rise up from the ground the first time you tried it out. I even clapped a little bit I think :) Well done mate!

[@shurmurray]

There are a number of 3d printed hovercraft, but this one is far superior in terms of design and elegance! Great work!

[@bgauweiler]

Absolutely brilliant!!

[@SianaGearz]

You can use triple rudder, with linkages to main rudder. Or you can do dual rudder if you leave the servo where it is and link to two rudders, as if there was a middle rudder on it.

[@Danimal-3D]

Super impressive Tom. Love how you go through the troubleshooting throughout the video and you also take the time to add some graphics (turbulence, air vectors, etc)... keep it up!

[@Chickey]

Awesome, brave enough to give it a go on water?

[@HB-jf6yq]

Colin Hickey He needs to waterproof the electronics

[@tissuepaper9962]

HB You mean spray them with two coats of the spray-on polyurethane he almost absolutely has in his workshop?

[@cathallawlor989]

TissuePaper that is still waterproofing it.

[@Chickey]

Appreciate he would need some water proofing, kind of a given.

[@echopark25]

I would've loved to give this a go, not on water but at the moment the loch near where I live has iced over. Would be fantastic to see it out on that.

[@The1wsx10]

for extensive tail rudder testing, you might want to make a removable base for the rudder. then, when you want to introduce pivot points or whatever, you simply print a new rudder base instead of the whole chasis

[@jaspercushing3470]

Its super cool that Peter Sripol is a Patreon supporter of yours, showing support for the DIY community, awesome.

[@rishijain2228]

ikr

[@thePronto]

The tilt to port (12:30) is compounded by engine torque. Also, at 15:45 you need to consider rudder stall.

[@Drawliphant]

This is a realy great build. Im as impressed by the simplicity as much as its strangeness. The whole thing runs on a single motor and a servo. Toy companies would kill for such a cheep build.

[@sasvapes8014]

Short skirts don’t just look good on the ladies Tom they give much more stability to hovercrafts 😜

[@AlRoderick]

I've seen some real life small hovercraft that use a pair of thrust reverser buckets that can flip back into the air stream independently, one on each side. Use one at a time to turn or both for a fast stop, and if you feather the input just right you can hold still without losing lift.

[@garybaxter7297]

Paint it BLACK, paint tentacles on it and christen it H.P. HOVERCRAFT

[@catash7247]

Really reaching for that one. Honestly you couldn't fit hentai into the reference as well?

[@lindafortin4397]

Love you 😘♥️💜❤️💜❤️❤️❤️♥️♥️❤️❤️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️❤️ Ling 😘😘❤️♥️

[@jeffwarren9791]

Hey man fuck that guy!!! I love the lovecraft reference!! Jeeze didnt his mamma teach him anything?? If ya aint got nothing nice to say.......shut the fuck up ya little puke!! Hehe

[@alanmarhic6813]

What are these three comments?

[@garybaxter7297]

@@alanmarhic6813 late to the show broski?

[@NothingBootz]

I wish I was born with the brains like you. you are making good functional stuff so easilly and rapidly.

[@ThePlaneguys]

Dat cable management... I wish I could be bothered to design those into my designs :P.

[@Lampe2020]

The reason for the hovercraft tilting over to its left is that the motor is rotating to the right and the angular momentum it has tries to flip the hovercraft. The problem is less obvious when it's hovering lower as it then has less space for the left edge to come down.

[@Joshbuilds101]

Damn, i like it

[@rickroll4058]

Nice, 69 likes.

[@theodornitu]

I love how you approach everything as an engineer! Congrats! Keep it up!

[@robertlunsford1350]

Mix your rudder and throttle to compensate for prop torque. You also could have mounted the entire fan on a servo for steering.Nice build!

[@comedyshane123]

Robert Lunsford yeh i like the idea of mounting the fan as a rudder as well great idea

[@gonun69]

Turning the whole fan would make it pretty complicated to design the air intake for the skirt... On a Hovercraft with a seperate propeller for the skirts it would work fine I guess...

[@jusb1066]

or just turn the duct itself

[@tissuepaper9962]

Jusb1066 But then you lose the thrust advantage of a ducted fan.

[@rogerdickinson3168]

The major problem with turning the hole fan would be the rotational forces generated from rotating a spinning object. Anyone play with a top before?

[@Jack155Q4]

Just made mine. Love it. I found a 70mm EDF on Thingyverse which i scaled to 7mm on the Z and 75mm on X and Y. Works great! Cheers Tom. Great design!

[@binayakdas7361]

the motor/propeller housing looks like the pnp/npn type transistor symbol from a circuit diagram :-P

[@guillermomarturetfendt9037]

I thinc yu'er mom gay

[@simard333]

Lol

[@yustinj.6792]

Guillermo Marturet Fendt no u

[@cathallawlor989]

NE 555 maybe not one to one but somewhat looks like it

[@canos9649]

@@enrico81 images.ecosia.org/lf0eBnBnHMpD6uBWUKr91MJbyys=/0x390/smart/https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.pixabay.com%2Fphoto%2F2013%2F07%2F12%2F13%2F19%2Ftransistor-146813_640.png

[@MobiusHorizons]

I love the detailed explanations of your design features and decisions. You really do an excellent job. I wish I could like it more than once!!

[@richardmcdonnell5367]

Hey, was just thinking why not tripple aerofoils on the rear, you could keep the servo in it's current position, and link the outer foils...just a thought! Great video, enjoy your channel!

[@tissuepaper9962]

Richard McDonnell Double rudders would be pretty easy, just need to drill two holes for pivots, and use the servo horns to connect linkages

[@DanielWood]

This is your best video yet. Some really nice design features. I especially like how the fan and servo mount on a single bolt.

[@TheAngryAstronomer]

I reckon the HQ 6 bladed prop would be nice if cut down to fit.

[@howardbannister745]

You single handedly motivated me to buy a 3d printer. Keen to get started

[@yustinj.6792]

Someone's been watching Ivan Miranda haha. You two should collaborate sometime in the future.

[@b_mb4948]

Something tells me that sometime in the future, you will be flying around England in an ultralight of your own design/construction...

[@ekkkkkknoes]

That's some impressive engineering on the chassis, good job man! Especially with how simple assembly is!

[@tijssens]

You could add a heading hold heli gyro!

[@rustymustard7798]

Hey Tom, cool machine! Hovercraft are a TON of fun! There's a simple trick for making perfect skirts with no effort. Grab a new heavy duty trash bag and don't open it. Just spread it out so it's 2 layers thick on a table. Place your craft on the table and trace out the craft 's profile x percent bigger than the hull, where x is the size of your skirt deflated. There's some math you can do to find x for a certain skirt radius, but i generally eyeball it and go about 30-60mm larger than the hull depending on it's size. Now take a hot soldering iron and on a flat surface, trace out the line with the tip dragging at an angle so that it melts the two layers together and creates a seam at the same time the cut is made. Practice on a bag with a chisel tip held at an angle until you can get a perfectly sealed seam and the cut in one pass. It's not as hard as it sounds. Another tip, try a cylindrical rudder. Just 3d print up a ring about 1/2 the diameter of your fan shroud with a servo horn hole on the bottom and offset it to the rear so it doesn't contact the prop. Also, i've found that you CAN control hovercraft precisely without using a bucket rudder, but it takes a VERY quick hand on the throttle and learning how low you can go on power without dragging. Fly at low power and use quick blips of throttle and heavy rudder to initiate and halt yaw, and lead the throttle. Learn how much to give it to start and stop yawing because by the time you see the craft move it's too late. Hovercraft flying is a feel thing, be aggressive when setting a yaw rate but smooth when guiding the craft under moderate power. Single fans are silly simple but a good dual fan is a huge improvement in performance. A decent computer case or server rack fan that pulls 1-3a moves plenty of air to inflate a skirt on larger craft than yours, you might be able to get away with a smaller blower style fan or two on that size craft without needing two whole brushless outrunners and all that noise. Another tip, double hull craft are much more stable, and one huge key to stability is sizing the skirt diameter so that when fully inflated, the lowest point of the skirt is just inside the perimeter of the outermost upper deck. If it's outside the hull it'll deflate the skirt on turns, feel mushy and have lots of roll. Too far inside and it'll be twitchy and unstable. On a double hull machine it allows you to add a "stabilization" hole instead of just venting the edges of the skirt. Basically, it's a hole in the hull at the dynamic center of the craft that lets about 50% of the air from the fan blower or duct diverter pass straight down and ensure positive pressure at the center of the craft that encourages even flow under the skirt edges. some craft do well just by inflating the skirt with static pressure and letting all the air pass through the center, smaller craft especially. One more thing with a double hull twin fan craft that has a fan lying horizontally you'll encounter the problem of torque yawing the craft under fan power. This problem seems to scare many people away from even building this type of craft, but there's an easy solution. Just put the appropriate angle of vanes in between the top and bottom hull to correct the airflow. Experimentation with foam and tape or hot glue to fix temporary corrector vanes will get you the angle you need, then once you know what it is, add it to your stl file as needed. Here's a playlist of some of my hovercraft, both skirted, skirtless, single and dual fan. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZTYioefnKt0atE

[@dilly2424]

Is there any place you sell or give out the files for the 3D prints? I love it!

[@revenevan11]

I don't have it so I'm not sure, but I think on his patreon!

[@zogworth]

I vacuum formed one once for my GCSE DT project. Worked out pretty well but went with thin plywood in the end. All of which was unnecessarily complex. You can just use laminated polystyrene and pipe lagging round the edge. For the power to weight you can get from scale models a flexible skirt isn't needed

[@aviartscraft8121]

Nice, great job, I like it 😊😀😊

[@beebakrizzle]

Yay for design without supports! I find the challenge of designing for 3d printing absolutely amazing.

[@alternator6669]

18:07 Great toy!

[@agepbiz]

Cool project. I liked how you designed the cable paths

[@mysterOrel7924]

nice project i like it !! what do you think about en electric longboard !! after the electriv Bike V3 i think a an electric longboard could be your next project !!

[@ZillionPrey]

Myster Orel nah there are too many people that have done that already

[@mysterOrel7924]

DerpyDoom yeah I know that and i have also watch many of them ! But Tom made his project in a diffrent way and maybe he will show us something very differente !!

[@tannerconstantine2733]

Myster Orel Yeah that would be great. Maybe we could have a good, easy to follow tutorial(Not saying no one else doesn't have one but toms would be the best)

[@mysterOrel7924]

Tanner Constantine yeah for sure

[@ArcticRc]

Clamp the skirt also to the middle and make holes for the air to escape. Almost like a tube around the craft. I did a big one years ago. This will prevent water sand and shit getting inside

[@TomStantonEngineering]

Thanks Bengt, I'm working on an inner skirt clamp right now! Just had a look at your hovercraft from back in 2013 and it looks like it worked awesome is the snow! We've just had some snow here in the UK, so I'll be out testing soon ;)

[@davidturner2365]

That’s well cool

[@zolatanaffa87]

well done Tom! instead of duplicating the rudder you could triple it: keep the servo in place. create two vertical axles for therudders, equidistant from the servo (on the right and left of the servo) and connect the two rudders to the central rudder bracket and you're done. If you do not want to have three rudders you can remove the central one keeping, off course the servo's bracket

[@electroninja8768]

*"As far as I am aware (correct me if I am wrong), the hollow ducts of this hovercraft frame couldn't be manufactured in ONE piece using any other manufacturing technique."* Technically you could have cast the whole thing.

[@danielbudney7825]

With something this light, the angular momentum of your motor rotating is going to push the craft to one side. If you had two counter-rotating blades (on separate but matched motors), the angular momentum should cancel out and leave your control more balanced.

[@isaaclyonsf1]

Cool!

[@Queteimp]

First video I see from U . Very smart and realistic the way you analyze the problems. I did a hovercrafts and most of the issues I had you mention then and fixed them properly. Very clever. I mean I've seen aerospace engineers attacking the problems like amateurs. Pretty good video

[@Riztech101]

I thought peter sripol did something like this.

[@JamesOrr81]

Oh man, this video spoke to me in a way that I can't describe from my childhood.

[@stwch]

What happens if you scale it up?

[@cine_motard]

It would be bigger :P

[@HB-jf6yq]

pizza_boy18 Need a bigger motor

[@TomStantonEngineering]

Hmm that could be interesting... I think I have a motor that will run a 6 inch propeller (3inch propeller on this) to build a 2:1 scale replica ;)

[@danielskoldengen6385]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bYm1q2B5r7qKhqc

[@happejojja687]

A really cool idea is to scale it up for outdoor use but keep most of the design. Perhaps as long as a skateboard. Some parts would still be able to be 3D printed. Love your videos!

[@ThereminHero]

Wow that rudder solution was super elegant!

[@jathinpangal9498]

Hey. tom I am from India😁😁

[@bubuthegiant]

sub to pewdiepie

[@VoidXRC]

Great job Tom, every time I watch one of your videos It makes me want to improve upon my own rc projects just that much more! Very nice build.

[@imsundee]

For a ginger this guy is smart. I bet he has a soul

[@ZillionPrey]

Sundee racist idiots like you are not needed in the Community

[@jedtimmer8639]

racist

[@timo1294]

DerpyDoom its a joke idiots

[@brettefantomet]

DerpyDoom I found the ginger

[@evaahh9584]

DerpyDoom r/whoosh

[@CerebralDad]

This is an absolute brilliant design! Thanks for sharing!

[@paleblueplate9499]

FIRST

[@remotecontrolaholic]

The quality of your content is far above a lot of 3d printing/rc/experimental channels I see. Keep it up!

[@carbide1968]

Very impressive Sir. I was wowed at how you thought of mounting the servo and turbine together.

[@bamig8063]

I really like your red and blue color scheme for 3d printing, keep up the cool stuff man

[@surfcello]

It would be wonderful to see you take that thing outside on both land and water and to give it full throttle!

[@ObserverChat]

Tom, each time i see you've uploaded a new video - i drop everything and watch it. you are a brilliant guy and I thank you for sharing. i am not only learning a lot from you, but i do this with a smile as well. keep up the good work. waiting for your next video s to come.

[@PeterOeC]

14:35 - I was a bit concerned for your fingers there 😂 Love your videos! Cheers!

[@MCsCreations]

That's awesome, dude! Really, really nice work and design! 😀

[@MoiraOBrien]

I do so enjoy your videos and the explanations you give for the various decisions you make. Keep up the great work.

[@miketoews1522]

I’m a hovercraft builder/pilot and I will suggest using what’s called a bag skirt on it instead of the type of finger skirt. It would be more stable on hover.

[@BenTvHowman]

You just solved my skirt problem. It's been doing my head in on my homemade foam hovercraft. I love your design. Mine has a foam box at the bottom of the propeller (not ducted) and ported evenly and 2 cells are more than enough. My mates 4 cell li po broke the moter mount but it works not quite as well as your design and now I'm rambling lol

[@MrStemkilla]

it would be interesting to see the propeller located at the front of the craft. since they handle like a rwd car on ice maybe a fwd controll would give you much more control over the craft.

[@redbaronrc]

I had a real hovercraft. It had twin rudders. Even still it wasn't the most nimble at turning. always had to plan ahead. Lot's of fun thought!

[@valveman12]

Tom Stanton Nice design and troubleshooting.

[@blair.nichols]

yet another great project, well documented, explained and really good to watch! Looking at the printing section I can suggest a couple changes to improve your print and reduce stringing, I also have a few CR10s: give it a coast distance of about 0.10 - 0.20 - depending on temp. increase retraction speed.

[@Ryan_Tidwell]

Looks like great fun. If I had a motor and speed controller for it I'd be printing one right now. :D

[@philipbyrnes7501]

Exceptionally well done mate. A very creditable job of design, construction and the problem solving was done exquisitely. Very, very impressed, thank you for sharing, 11x👍🏻👏

[@lubbl1234]

You need to add weight on the left side of the hovercraft. The speed controller on the right side shifts the center of mass to the right. Nice Video!

[@modelnutty6503]

3D printing is nice and all, but last year I did really similar about twice that size using coroplast (for platform, duct, shroud, steering vanes) and a foam pool noodle as the surround. it's light so it doesn't take a lot of power, and guaranteed to float! the pool noodle is also a great bumper/skirt. it only rises 2-3 mm for not having an inflatable skirt, so naturally won't do as well over rougher surfaces. about 1/3 of the shroud is duct, it gets more positive pressure running a 6 blade 5" 3P prop, 2212 motor 2700kv because it was cheap.

[@ZeroFlame007]

This is legit, I'm super impressed with how well it worked on the first go around. Also was really glad to see it all in a single video, I like the multi part videos as well, but sometimes they feel cut a little too short :) Excellent work on this!

[@IraQNid]

Imagine a hover craft with precise turning and braking controls. There was such a machine built. It featured 2 braking thrusters at the nose of the craft, on the front left was one thruster, on the front right was another thruster, this was repeated on the rear left and right corners. Lift and propulsion came from two separate fans. It was a commercial passenger craft that was completely street legal due to the precise handling of the vehicle. Have you explored this option with future 3D printed hover craft?

[@florianhiller6568]

Drive it on a Lake! That would be fun, and approve its hovering. Simply just looks cool.

[@stoopidbastid6420]

i think its tipping because of motor torque. For that reason, on single engine aircraft, the motor is never mounted straight relative to the frame. I dont remember the degrees of offset rotation. You could also try making a bag out of an inner tube with several small holes at the bottom with reduced airflow. A few polystyrene blocks will help in keeping the operational volume. Love the vid.

[@vaterchenfrost7481]

Nice Project. Thx for the vid. Use a grid-fin-ruder. It is very efficient, light-weight and easy to print. And I recomend a use of membrane-shaped air-skirt: it consists of a three parts: two flat membranes and one riggit-ring for tight connecting of membranes.

[@Sleepyboii_]

this is soo satisfying when putting the peaces together... SATISFACTION!!

[@ChipEstrada]

The direction of the propeller is affecting air flow. So at high speed it's forcing more air into the one side. You need to make the airflow adjustable

[@jukkatakamaa7274]

Tom is a genious in his field.

[@coskuarsiray]

great tool to pratice on throttle skills for quads.

[@arturaskarbocius828]

nice solution to two engine hovercraft, using one by diverting part of flow to hovering.

[@ianlainchbury]

Thanks Tom. Enjoy the channel :) Have purchased the files to have a play with.

[@anderstwilling6027]

the idea of a hovercraft is for it to be an all-terrain vehicle so how about making it waterproof and try it out on water. Just an idea :) love the diy stuff gets me psyched on my own projects

[@Cluffmaster1980]

This is amazing. I may even buy a 3d printer to build my own. Great video.. Thanks.

[@brsrc759]

Awesome! I love the rudder Innovation that worked out well