Open Source $50 Water Turbine From Repurposed Parts

Easy access to reliable electrical power is something a lot of us take for granted, but in developing countries or after natural disaster, it can be a rare commodity. [Daniel Connelly] has been working hard to develop infrastructure people can build themselves, and his latest project is a 200 W water turbine (video after the break) that can be built for about $50.

The core of the system is a wheel and motor from a hoverboard. What looks like 110 mm PVC tubing is connected together in a U-shape that can be mounted over the wall of a man-made channel. The inlet side is shorter than the outlet, and the system must be filled with water to allow the flow to start, like a siphon. The first two versions had the impeller sitting on the end of the outlet tube. V1 used a scrap plastic radial impeller of unknown origin, and did not work at all. V2 had a 3D printed impeller that worked pretty well, but the rotation speed wasn’t high enough to produce the voltage that [Daniel] wanted.

V3 used a large computer fan that was mounted in the short horizontal piece of section of tubing at the top of the system. It worked spectacularly well, producing about 55 V AC over a single phase of the motor, which should hopefully end up producing about 90 V DC and 200-500 W after rectifying the 3-phase motor output. This only however indicative, we would really like to see it tested with different loads connected. The output will also be dependent on the flow rate and head pressure of a particular stream/channel/river, and [Daniel] admits that they had pretty much ideal conditions for their tests. If hoverboard motors are hard to come by, a motorcycle alternator should also work well.

[Daniel] is still working out the kinks of the system, but as with his other designs on OpenSourceLowTech he will release the full open source design and tutorials as soon as he is ready. We are looking forward to seeing the system implemented out in the wild. For off-grid power, home built and 3D printed wind generators are another popular topic around here, if you don’t have a handy channel nearby.

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An Actual Working Hoverboard

What with 2015 being the apparent “year of the hoverboard”, we have a final contender before the year ends. It’s called the ArcaBoard from ArcaSpace, A private space company. And it doesn’t use magnets, or superconductors, or any smoke and mirrors — just a whole lot of ducted fans.

Thirty-six of them to be precise. The ArcaBoard uses 36 electric motors with an apparent 7.55HP each, powered by a massive bank of lithium ion batteries. Together, they produce 430 pounds of thrust, which allows most riders to float around quite easily. Even with that huge power drain, it apparently lasts for a whole 20 minutes, which is pretty impressive considering its size.

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Superconducting Hoverboard

The French Built The Superconducting Hoverboard 4 Years Before Lexus

The internet only just got over Lexus’ real working hover board, but as it turns out, a team of researchers from the University of Paris Diderot already built one, over 4 years ago (machine translation)!

Using the same principles as the hover board Lexus build, the researchers built a very expensive neodymium magnet track to test the board on. Only difference here is that they didn’t hide the magnets. The hover board itself was machined out of wood, and houses a large sealed metal tray which contains the superconducting bricks.

Pour in some liquid nitrogen through the funnel, and you’re ready to witness some of the quantum properties of superconductors! The board floats a few centimeters above the magnetic rails, and in their tests was able to lift people over 100 kg in weight (hint for most Americans… there are 2.2 pounds to one kilogram).

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Air Hoverboard

A Simple Hoverboard Everyone Can Understand

To be honest, we were wondering when we would see someone try this…

[Ryan Craven] has successfully built a working hovercraft that looks like a skateboard. It floats on two pockets of air generated by four Black and Decker leaf blowers — and by golly, it certainly looks like it works!

Ever since the HUVr hoax earlier this year, [Ryan] has had the goal to make a real, working hoverboard. Hendo may have beaten him to the punch with their $10,000 eddy current inducing halbach array board, but alas, it only works on copper or aluminum floors. [Ryan’s] can be used anywhere a normal skateboard can be. It’s far from sleek, but it’s only just the prototype — though we’re curious to see how far this could actually go.

Which is precisely why he’s shared it over on Hackaday.io and is hoping to draw some support and ideas from our wonderful community here.

What do you guys think? Is it worth continuing the pursuit of a hovercraft style hoverboard? Can we shrink the technology enough to make it feasible? It’s come a long way from the classic hover craft using a giant shop vac…

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It’s Not 2015 Yet But Marty And His Hoverboard Are Already Here!

Okay now this is seriously awesome. [Rodger Cleye] has made a real working Hoverboard.

You guys might remember the recent [Tony Hawk] and [Christopher Lloyd] viral Hoverboard hoax video… Well, this isn’t that. Nope, not even close. It’s real.

The Hoverboard is a quadrotor on steroids — it features four 1200W brushless motors driving 12″ props, a massive 13.4Ah 5S Li-Po battery, and a [Marty McFly] mannequin wearing the classic red vest. He’s counter-balanced [Marty] and the battery around the rotors which makes for a surprisingly smooth flight. It even has a run-time of over 5 minutes, thanks to a whopping 83% efficiency using the 12″ props.

[Rodger] designed and simulated the entire system in eCalc before construction — He had first attempted a bi-copter design, but opted for the tried and true quad-rotor instead. The frame is made of 1/2″ PVC pipe to conserve the mass budget, but altogether it still weighs an unbelievable 20lbs! How close are we to being able to give toddlers the ability to fly?

Just take a look at the following video — we’re seriously impressed.

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