Why don't you make like a Tree, and get out of here, "Hey McFly!" Options

[Stahlseele]

http://www.hendohover.com/#/
This has to be some kind of Hoax of scam or something or somebody is trying to play with my very fragile nerd-feelings again <.<;,
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/142464...real-hoverboard

[Ixal]

http://www.hendohover.com/#/
This has to be some kind of Hoax of scam or something or somebody is trying to play with my very fragile nerd-feelings again <.<;,
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/142464...real-hoverboard

Already nearly 100k for this hoax. My faith in humanity shrunk again.

[Rad]

Fucking magnets how do they work, amirite?

Seriously though, when kids complain about learning physics in high school--claiming they'll never use it in real life--this, this is where you use it. Even a basic understanding of physics and the power requirements for shit like MRI's will tell you we don't have a power source nearly compact enough to make this work.

[Stahlseele]

Err, i did some more researching and:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/20...ndo-hoverboard/
there might actually be something to this . .

The Batterys only operate at 40W/Kilo, so that's a show stopper due to efficiency i guess . .

[Sendaz]

If they ever make a major breakthrough on RTSC then this might be more feasible....

[SpellBinder]

Was expecting to see the "hoverboard" video with Christopher Lloyd again with the OP. And what a way to plug at the Star Wars fanatics with one of their demonstration models.

[Rad]

Ah, well the details in the forbes article are at least somewhat more believable--40lb max lift capacity, 7 minute max operating time, horribly inefficient, and only works when placed over conductive materials--but if that is accurate then the kickstarter page is highly misleading.

[edit] Going over the Forbes article in more detail, wow this is a total scam. First off, they show a video of someone standing on it. How many people do you know that weigh 40 pounds? Then there's the talk about "1 inch of ride height for taking on hover-ramps." Again, you're not going to be riding this thing if it can only support a fraction of your weight.

Aside from the fact that they clearly misrepresent what this thing can do, they also misrepresent it as being some amazing new breakthough. There's already way better maglev tech out there. If all you're doing is suspending a magnet above a copper plate, there are fricking executive desk toys that blow this thing out of the water. Seriously disappointing.

[Shaidar]

The 40# max is stated for their single hover engine tester. Their hover board might use more than 1 hover engine.

[Rad]

The website claims their boards use four hover engines. The developer kit reviewed in the forbes article is stated to come with "a scaled down set of our hover engines" and the power source for them, so possibly still four, but maybe less powerful?

It's very vague and weasel-wordy, which makes me suspicious. The Forbes article provides the only hard numbers--about 40 lbs of lifting capacity--but they don't specify whether this is per engine or for the entire set. If we're talking 40 lbs per engine, then four of them should be able to lift around 160 lbs working in concert. If the engines in the dev kit are in fact less powerful than the ones built into the actual hoverboards, then we're looking at a pretty good amount of lift.

However that's a very big claim, especially coming from a guy who refuses to explain how his technology works and uses a name like "Magnetic Field Architecture" for it. That name is the kind of technobable you'd expect to find on Star Trek--it sounds impressive and scientific unless you actually know anything about physics and magnetic fields, at which point you realize he might as well have picked the words out of a hat. Not the kind of name I'd expect a legitimate engineer to pick for his breakthrough process.

Considering the Forbes article says "The hover tech inside the development kit is able to carry around 40 pounds", that seems to imply they are referring to the entire kit, not just one engine--which places serious doubt on the board's ability to support an adult's weight. In addition, the article states that the engines contain moving parts and are "very noisy" which implies some type of motorized electromagnet assembly. This isn't new, I was playing around with ideas like that back in Jr. High, an there have been plenty of devices--both real and conceptual--that use similar ideas.

What's more, I've seen better examples of magnetic levitation achieved using high-strength permanent magnets. If you want to use magnetic forces to lift something as heavy and fragile as a human, rare-earth magnets are a much better choice because you don't need a power source to maintain the effect. Electromagnets are probably cheaper, I haven't price compared the two in a while, but either way he doesn't seem to be achieving anything that can't be done with really well-known technologies.

If he was getting these results without requiring a copper plate under the board, I'd be impressed. (And skeptical as hell.) But as it stands this tech is neither revolutionary nor the best way to go about what he's trying to do--which makes all his claims and secrecy seem like pure flim-flam. Sure, it's nifty that someone's actually building these, but he really shouldn't be trying to raise funding by painting them as something they aren't.

[Mystweaver]

I saw this the other night and was blown away but equally skeptical. Never got around to reading the info, but could this not be achieved (if only very briefly) with 4 high powered brushless fans?

[Shemhazai]

The hoverboard is publicity for technology that the promoter says has other potential applications. He says it's patented, so you should be able to see what it does in more detail.

I was shocked by their cost estimates for MagLev train tracks. Maybe something like this could be used in combination with traditional MagLev or concepts like the Hyperloop.

[Draco18s]

I shot an email to the guy(s) at Drop-Kicker.com and the reply was that it's legit, but it uses a fuckton of power to work, so practical applications are limited and battery charge duration is likely short.

[Sendaz]

I shot an email to the guy(s) at Drop-Kicker.com and the reply was that it's legit, but it uses a fuckton of power to work, so practical applications are limited and battery charge duration is likely short.

Kinda like this then. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Draco18s]

Kinda like this then. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Sounds about right.