Floating our machines on air

[Frank Pellow]

The hover pad recently announced by General International looks interesting. See http://www.general.ca/pagemach/machines/10824_929.html

I am looking forward to someone (else) being the one to bite the bullet and purchase a pad, trest it, and post their experience here.

[Bob Reda]

Frank,

On a much larger scale, we use these (much bigger of course) to move 85 ton super heaters around and through power houses to replace them. More prep work than actually moving but worked slicker than sh*&

Bob

[Bill Turpin]

We have a double bag unit at work that moves a 15' x 8', 10,000# kiln car. Floor must be flat, smooth, and CLEAN. I would not use on anything but poured concrete. A piece of trash the thickness of a dime and half it's size will hang up the travel and let the air out. The floor must be clean. Other than this it works wonderful. One worker can move this object with one hand! Ours is six years old and is used 4 to 5 times a week.

Bill in WNC mountains

[Mack Cameron]

When the installers came to lay a new floor in our kitchen, they used a mat very similar to this to move the fridge. No marks on the new floor when they moved the fridge back in it's place. Worked slick!
It reads like smoothness is the governing factor here, Probably wouldn't work on my basement floor.

[Frank Pellow]

...
Floor must be flat, smooth, and CLEAN. I would not use on anything but poured concrete. A piece of trash the thickness of a dime and half it's size will hang up the travel and let the air out. The floor must be clean.
...

I guess that it would not work well in my shop then. ;) :o Oh well, it had to be too good to be true.

[Brent Smith]

Hi Frank,

I think it will have limited sales in the home woodworker market. As everyones pointed out the floor has to be pretty much perfect for it to work. I know mine isn't and I'm pretty sure the majority of HWWers are in the same situation. Pads like that are good for moving something every once in a while, but most of us have mobile bases because we have to move things almost every day to get the room we need to work. Who's going to want to clean the floor 6 times a day so they can move their machines around, assuming of course that they have that perfectly flat floor to start with.

Brent

[Ken Garlock]

Frank,

On a much larger scale, we use these (much bigger of course) to move 85 ton super heaters around and through power houses to replace them. More prep work than actually moving but worked slicker than sh*&

Bob

Bob how about 'snot on a glass door knob?';)

[Jamie Buxton]

Hi Frank,

I think it will have limited sales in the home woodworker market. As everyones pointed out the floor has to be pretty much perfect for it to work. I know mine isn't and I'm pretty sure the majority of HWWers are in the same situation. Pads like that are good for moving something every once in a while, but most of us have mobile bases because we have to move things almost every day to get the room we need to work. Who's going to want to clean the floor 6 times a day so they can move their machines around, assuming of course that they have that perfectly flat floor to start with.

Brent

No, what others pointed out was that the giant industrial versions expect a flat floor. The trash tolerance probably has to do with how much weight you're lifting, and how much air you're willing to blow through it. Heck, military hovercrafts fly over ocean waves and sand dunes. General markets to woodworkers with home shops. They've probably tuned their version to deal with the kinds of floors which we have. I wouldn't give up on this one immediately.

Of course, like Frank, I'd cheerfully be willing for somebody else to try it first!

[Brent Smith]

Of course, like Frank, I'd cheerfully be willing for somebody else to try it first!

Hi Jamie,

I think that's one point we can all agree on :). But here's a clip from the website

"The Hoverpad™ will fly over smooth, hard, airtight surfaces. Flatness doesn’t matter, but smoothness is critical. Test by applying a suction cup to the floor – if it sticks even slightly, it will work."

I know my shop floor isn't a smooth airtight surface. I have to wonder how many home shops are.

Brent

[Art Mulder]

I also heard about this pad this morning and found it interesting. As I read this thread I was puzzled by the conjecture until I realized that most of you probably haven't seen the video.

The general.ca website unfortunately does not have a video of it in action. However, this website does.

http://www.hoverbench.com/

Looks like fun.

best,
...art

[Bruce Page]

I also heard about this pad this morning and found it interesting. As I read this thread I was puzzled by the conjecture until I realized that most of you probably haven't seen the video.

The general.ca website unfortunately does not have a video of it in action. However, this website does.

http://www.hoverbench.com/

Looks like fun.

best,
...art

Pretty slick! I don't think it would work on my floor though.

[Frank Pellow]

Thanks for the video pointer Art. But, now I am almost certain that one of these would not work well in my shop.

[Bill Turpin]

The lifter I referred to earlier has two 2' x 8' pads fed by a true 3/4" hose pushed by 400 HP of compressors at a continuous 125 psi. The pads actually hover with only a few thousands of an inch of clearance. More clearance than a dime will over load the air supply and then the whole mess drops and you can't move it. If you compare the lineal feet of perimeter gap vs the air supply and now think about these smaller pads fed by a 1/4" quick disconnect (actual orifice of about 1/8") the lift can still be only in the neighborhood of a dime's thickness. What is the actual opening of a crack 0.020" x some 100 inches long. Can you maintain enough air pressure to lift a 200-300# machine.

The concrete in this part of the plant has 1/4" expansion joints about 1/8" deep. We had to caulk these joints with silicone seal to bring them level with the concrete. They let too much air out and the device dropped the load.
The amount of weight is not near as important as how much air can you keep under it! :(

Bill in WNC mountains

[Jamie Buxton]

Here's the system I've seen moving appliances into a kitchen. In the installation I saw, it went over a change in floor height of about a quarter inch. http://www.airsled.com/index.html

[Matt Meiser]

The first thing that comes to my mind is the theme song to TV's "Greatest American Hero" show from the 80's. http://www.tvtunesonline.com/lyrics/action_drama.asp#Hero

It looks like a good idea that won't work for most of us. I've got a bump in my floor between two separate slabs that sounds like it would create a problem.

[Ben Grunow]

Anyone own one of these? I would like to see the bottom to see the outlets- number, size and spacing. I would think that this could be easily made with a few scraps of plywood. Easy enough that a test model could be made and more models could be made to improve with relative ease. Maybe a plywood bottom that was screwed on over a thin torsion box like frame (holes for air flow through frames). The ply bottom could be unscrewed and replaced with different designs for testing before the final model(s) was made.

I dont need one of these but if some one could make it work I bet you would be a popular guy.

Force = Pressure x Area. To lift a 500 lb machine you need to apply 100 psi over 5 square inches of area (5 holes 1" x 1"). This is without leakage so the question is how much more pressure do you need to overcome the air leaking out, or maybe the holes need to be smaller and more evenly spaced, or maybe a linear opening would work better or... this post has taken more time to type than I have but I hope someone thinks this is a worthwhile challenge (someone with a big compressor).

[David Rose]

I remember that Bill Hylton built a tracer lathe that floated a platform over a (smooth) table. I've got the book and I'm going to look it back up. It was powered from the output of a shop vacuum. That can't be a lot of output, and it held up the platform and I think the router.

David, who is fascinated...

[Mike Kelly]

This should be a great product if you have the right floor. At Compaq we moved an entire production line from one building to another with 6" diameter pucks put under the feet of the line. It was 75' long and we had to build a special trailer to load it on, plus make the transition from dock door to trailer smooth. We didn't want to cut and splice two 6" bundles of control wiring. A small compressor and one person could get it moving. We had many people guiding it though!

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Two questions come to my mind:
1. Would I have to sweep the floor everytime I moved a machine?
2. Does it kick up dust? (The video seems to show that it does)
-Jeff :)

[Steven Wilson]

That's cool. If you want to do scrolling cuts on the ends of your Pergola then this would be fantastic. Put your bandsaw on the pad, fire it up and then you can keep the wood stationary and just move the bandsaw around to make the cut.

[Alan Schaffter]

A little sanity check here- a "hovercraft" mobile base sounds neat, the pics and video are cool, but check out the prices of these systems. Holy moly!!! Do you know how many really good mobile bases you can make or how many Delta, HTC, etc. bases you can buy for those prices!!!!

If I had a really smooth floor, which I don't (painted Advantech), and being a hopeless tinkerer, I think I would try to build one first.

Now for the guy who has a REALLY BIG shop, with REALLY BIG tools, and a REALLY BIG wallet, I suppose why not? Of course if he has a really big shop why does he need mobile bases.