The wheels on roller suitcases are one of their primary failure points. After the destruction of the wheel mount on her DIY suitcase, [Laura Kampf] wondered if it would be better to dispense with wheels altogether.
To give her suitcase a lift, [Kampf] decided to turn it into a hovercraft so it couldn’t be stopped by pavement or puddles. The first task was finding an appropriate fan, and a compact leaf blower donated it’s body to makerdom for the project. After reducing the blower to it’s constituent components and finding a secret turbo switch, work began on the momentum curtain.
“Nose-holing” the arrangement and size of the holes to pipe air through the stapled tarp and tape skirt seemed to be the bulk of the trial-and-error in this one. Based on other hovercraft designs [Kampf] found, keeping the holes near the center of the inflated portion gave better lift. In the end, the carry-on is able to lift a decent amount even on its lowest setting, resulting in a suitcase that is “not embarrassing” for travel. No word yet on what TSA thinks.
If you’re looking for another unexpected lift off, how about a full-sized flying Delorean replica? We’ve also covered some of the reasons why we don’t see more of these all terrain wonders.
Right out of college I worked for a defense contractor, and on one part of the factory floor the company built out “mobility shelters”, essentially field-deployable repair workshops constructed inside shipping containers.
In the factory these containers sat on these special air glide pallets. When it came time to move these 5 ton units you would drag a high volume, low pressure, compressed air line over and plug it into the pallet, and in a minute or so it would trap a very thin air cushion underneath.
The concrete floor was polished pretty smooth and you suddenly found yourself playing a giant version of air hockey – you could shove the truck-trailer sized shelters pretty easily by simply pushing them around.
One thing you learned early, though, is that even if those boxes had next to no friction, they still had 5 tons of inertia, and you had to plan ahead for turning and stopping.
Am I the only one thinking of The Luggage in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld?
The Luggage had a bunch of tiny legs. This is more like the grav-trunks from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper universe.
I’d like to see that moving over a puddle…
Then you’d be in luck if you watched the video.
When it doesn’t have the extra weight, you can see the side where the air is blowing is higher. If you split the airflow to distribute it, I think it would help balance it better. Also, instead of the leash, I would rig up something like the extending handle to the front and wire in the switch into the handle for turning it off and on.
add some distance sensors to the corners, an arduino controller and a way to route the air flow around and you have an upside down drone.
I want to see that go through my airport security. They give me trouble over my clearly marked diabetic injectables, cant see how a fan powered luggage case won’t cause issues