Hello, Arduino people. I am a Computer Science student who is planning to build a hovercraft with a small team of people for Freshman Engineering Design Day. (The "Day" is for showing off the hovercraft, not for building it. We have a couple of months for that.) I am not very good at physically building things, so I thought that I could most effectively help out with research and the control systems. So, I have a few questions.
Would it be feasible to use an Arduino board to control the hovercraft in the first place?
What would be the most effective (and cost-effective) option for remote-controlling it without a line from the computer? (We get bonus points for remote control as opposed to direct control.)
How does controlling the fans work? Would I connect each fan to an analog pin and control fan speed by setting the pins?
What is the best place to buy the kind of components we will need to build the craft (boards, RC components, fans, LEDs, etc.)? We are located in North Carolina, if that's important.
Do you have any helpful literature on the subject of building hovercrafts and things with Arduino (or just in general)?
Sounds like a fun project. I'm not sure how feasible an Arduino is. Never having built a hovercraft, here is my 2 cents.
Each pin on the Arduino can only handle 40 mA of current. I bet the fans will draw too much current. You will probably need a second power supply and some kind of motor controller.
Some questions to consider:
How many fans will you have and what are they rated?
What else will you need to control with the Arduino?
How will you steer it?
Hard to be much help without some more details - how big is this thing going to be? How many controls will you need? I assume minimally you'll need to control the speed of the fan inflating the skirt, the two rear fans (could be tied together) and the rudder. Arduino could certainly control that for you, but you'll need a motor shield or home grown H bridge to switch the kind of current the fans will need.
What do you see the Arduino doing for you? For a minimal solution, a regular radio control setup will do the job, although of course it doesn't showcase your software skills at all.
What would be the most effective (and cost-effective) option for remote-controlling it without a line from the computer? (We get bonus points for remote control as opposed to direct control.)
First thought is a serial connection over XBEE, the command can be as short as 1 byte = 8bit , giving you 256 possible values.
I would reserve one bit as parity (for single bit error detection), leaving open 128 values.
Pauly:
Each pin on the Arduino can only handle 40 mA of current. I bet the fans will draw too much current. You will probably need a second power supply and some kind of motor controller.
Would the fans have the lead or whatever for the second power supply built in, or would I need some kind of amplifying device that would have the Arduino and the power supply as input and the fan as output, and multiply the signal received via the Arduino by some amount? (I don't really know much about EE.)
wildbill:
Hard to be much help without some more details - how big is this thing going to be? How many controls will you need? I assume minimally you'll need to control the speed of the fan inflating the skirt, the two rear fans (could be tied together) and the rudder. Arduino could certainly control that for you, but you'll need a motor shield or home grown H bridge to switch the kind of current the fans will need.
I don't even know who I'm working with yet (hopefully an EE major...), or really much about the operating principles of a small hovercraft. Right now, I'm just doing some initial research.
wildbill:
What do you see the Arduino doing for you? For a minimal solution, a regular radio control setup will do the job, although of course it doesn't showcase your software skills at all.
Honestly, I don't really know. I just assumed that the Arduino would be a useful way to control the fan speeds using a computer. Like I said, I know very little about EE in general. If you have any materials on building a non-Arduino hovercraft, those would be useful too.