There were a lot of teased products which did not live up to their promises and the hype which surrounded them. From the looks of it, ArcaBoard is the closest we got to a hoverboard in 2015. The Arca Space Corporation is responsible for the design of this device.
This mattress shaped vehicle packs 272 horsepower and is further propelled by 36 ducted fans which spin at 45,000rpm. Sadly, buying one of them will set you back around 20,000 dollars. The company has already started taking pre-orders and they have further promised to start shipping in April 2016.
The speed of this device is limited to 12 miles per hour and it will fly at a height of 30 centimeters or 1 foot. Li-Po batteries supply power to this device and they account for a major part of its price. After the 1-year warranty has expired, getting a new battery pack will cost around 6840 dollars.
The device comes with two different versions. One of them is available for riders who way up to 80 kilos and the other is reserved for riders up to 110 kilos. The device with the lighter capacity can hover for 6 minutes while the heavier variant does 3 minutes.
On one charge, the lighter rider can theoretically travel a distance up to 1.2 miles. Once the batteries run flat, you can use the supplied charge to recharge them and this should take around 6 hours.
However, if you buy a special dock station for another 4500 dollars, it will simply take 35 minutes. Meanwhile, Arca has allowed the customers to replace the damaged parts by themselves after the device has been ordered from the factory. It is stated in the FAQ that opening this device will not void its warranty.
The ArcaBoard does look a bit awkward and unwieldy in the promotional videos but it has the ability to hover over any terrain like water, rocks, rail tracks and much more. However, the biggest concern about this vehicle is that it will be making a great deal of noise while floating around.
In all the videos released by the company, the original audio track has been altered. As it is, ducted fans are known to be pretty loud and having 36 of them under this baby will make you run for ear protection.
Sadly, we need to wait until April this year in order to witness this for real. The founder of Arca Space Corporation, Dumitru Popescu, told The Huffington Post that in the coming years, they will be able to drop the price of the technology while increasing the performance of the device. In the future, ArcaBoard could become a vector designed for mass transportation.
Arca was initially founded in Romania by Popescu as an NGO, in the year 1999. As an aerospace company, Arca has a proven track record and it received contracts from the Romanian Government along with the European Space Agency.
The company is responsible for the launch of four large-scale stratospheric balloons and two stratospheric rockets. The company is presently working on suborbital manned rockets and unmanned aircraft.
The ArcaBoard is a great futuristic device that was on a lot of wish-lists during this Christmas. A lot of people who bought this, expected to be floating in the air but that didn’t really go so well and have we mentioned that hovering on this device will cost you $19,000. Using 36 electric fans that blast to the ground, the ArcaBoard gains the ability to float.
A well designed and built electric hoverboard was made by C. A. Duru. It requires considerably less power than ArcaBoard and flies much better.
A comparison between the hoverboard of Catalin Alexandru Duru (see: youtube.com/watch?v=Bfa9HrieUyQ) and that made by Dumitru Popescu from ARCA.
Catalin Alexandru Duru’s hoverboard
– 8 rotors, 4000 W,
– Total Power: 32 kW = 43 hp
– Payload: 1 person
Dumitru Popescu’s hoverboard
– 36 rotors, 5.63 kW
– Total power: 203 kW = 272 hp
– Payload: 1 person
In conclusion, ArcaBoard is nothing else but a badly designed hoverboard that requires an enormous power, 272 hp, to carry a man while 43 hp are enough for such a job.
A well designed and built electric hoverboard was made by C. A. Duru. It requires considerably less power than ArcaBoard and flies much better.
A comparison between the hoverboard of Catalin Alexandru Duru (see: youtube.com/watch?v=Bfa9HrieUyQ) and that made by Dumitru Popescu from ARCA.
Catalin Alexandru Duru’s hoverboard
– 8 rotors, 4000 W,
– Total Power: 32 kW = 43 hp
– Payload: 1 person
Dumitru Popescu’s hoverboard
– 36 rotors, 5.63 kW
– Total power: 203 kW = 272 hp
– Payload: 1 person
In conclusion, ArcaBoard is nothing else but a badly designed hoverboard that requires an enormous power, 272 hp, to carry a man while 43 hp are enough for such a job.