Hoverboard pneumatic mobile base plans

[Bruce Seidner]

I have found kids on YouTube scooting about on leaf blower powered StarWars inspired boards and I have found a commercially available mobile base reviewed in Fine Woodworking. But I have found no plans that I would like to incorporate into the base of the 8' saw-router bench that I am constructing and that has to fit under a taller wall cantilevered bench in a garage workshop.

This started as I was thinking of a way to have a wheeled base that was driven down to lift the cabinet with air bladders. But then I settled on scissor vices that would drive the wheels down on each end of the long cabinet. Then I was introduced to the Hoverboard mobile base by a clever Canadian here in the Forum and I think this is cool beans for a balanced load (Thanks Rod). It needs only a modest amount of CFM and I have plenty of air in the shop to drive an air powered sander.

But I am having trouble finding plans. I imagine I could just start experimenting but I would prefer not reinventing the wheel, or in this case the hoverboard. I may still end up just using a pair of scissor jacks to push the wheels down and the cab up when I need to move it. Scissor jacks zip up and down smartly with a drill attached and don't take up much room inside the cabinet. But, if I could turn the whole base into a hoverboard that could glide out from under a workbench to the center of the garage and then glide back again powered by an air compressor then I would deserve the George Jetson award for future workshops.

Any one have any leads or ideas on what I would imagine should be routed channels or is it just one hole in the center and an air chuck?

[Aaron Berk]

No leads, but I sure want to follow this thread.

:D

[Jonathan Spool]

No leads, but I sure want to follow this thread.

:D

I'm with ya on that

[Bruce Wrenn]

Works the same way an air table does. One of the books from Taunton on jig and fixtures has BASIC plans in it. Betterly make a sub base for a router that uses air floatation. Go find an cheap air hockey table, and turn it upside down.

[Marty Paulus]

Sounds cool but I would think it would make a huge mess. The shop floor would have to be clean before turning the air on to move the unit otherwise you are going to thow a lot of dust in the air.

[Aaron Berk]

Thats a good thought Marty, I wonder what the OP voted in the "mop your shop poll"

Maybe he's a mopper?

[Bruce Seidner]

Works the same way an air table does. One of the books from Taunton on jig and fixtures has BASIC plans in it. Betterly make a sub base for a router that uses air floatation. Go find an cheap air hockey table, and turn it upside down.


Well, that means this coming weekend I will construct a peg board box and see if it will levitate when air is applied. The one sold by General is less than an inch thick and looks to have just one large cavity open to the floor. Thanx for the leads.

Bruce

[Chris Parks]

You will want a lot of air through pegboard, an electric leaf blower perhaps? I think the holes would want to be a lot smaller, perhaps a 1/16" to 1/8", just a guess of course. I also think the air outlets should be surrounded by some sort of o'ring so the air has to lift the o'ring to get out thus lifting the base. This means it will have a pressure rise inside the o'ring before the base lifts. I have often wondered if the idea will work, I was considering building my own before I stumbled across four commercial units for $100 the lot. Keep us posted.

[Jamie Buxton]

There are also commercial products sold for moving appliances. For instance http://www.airsled.com/appliance.htm and http://www.carpetstretcher.net/product.php?productid=241 I don't know that you'd want to purchase one of these, but if you're going to build your own (which seems entirely feasible to me), they might be another source of knowledge.

[Brian Vaughn]

The biggest thing to remember is that you need something that provides a near-seal to the floor. Typically this is done with some sort of rubber/cloth membrane that also inflates with air before expelling it into a central cavity where it can escape relatively evenly between the membrane and the floor.

In laymans terms, you need more than a piece of pegboard. We used to use large donut shaped bladders that inflated when the air was applied, and that provided a good positive seal to the floor. Using that setup, we would pick up a 240 ton load on six 48 inch air casters. Pressures were less than 100 psi, but air flow was huge, and we typically maintained a miniscule air gap, around 7-13 mils.

To build something similar yourself, get an innertube (you know, like this: http://www.amazon.com/Slime-5001-Auto-Inner-Tube/dp/B000ET8CZM) slice it in half, glue one half to a piece of plywood (Along the inner and outer edges only!!!). Drill a hole in the plywood into the area now covered by the innertube (Not the donut hole!) and punch a hole in the innertube near the donut hole section. Experiment to see what size holes work best for you, but that's all there is to it. Turn it over, add air, voila! Using this setup, you should be able to add some feet to keep it from putting all the weight onto the innertube when deflated. Also, keep in mind that it will lift when you add the air, so you don't have to use half of the innertube, just some section can work fine so it won't lift up as high...

[Neil Brooks]

In theory, you could always buy one (http://www.hoverbench.com/), rip it apart, figure out how IT's built, and then base your version on the commercial version.