Chances are you have been riding your hoverboard around town without really knowing the mechanics behind how it works. Yes, we all take into consideration how fast the hoverboard can go and how long it can last on a charge. However, most riders don’t really care about the science behind how it actually works.
For the limited few that actually likes to know everything about their gear, we have the inside on how the self-balancing hoverboard actually works.
Before we get into the mechanics of the hoverboard, we first look at what it consists of:
- Logic board
- Steel frame
- Gyroscopes
- Infrared Sensors
- Electric motors
- Speed/tilt sensors
- Battery pack
Most hoverboard come with the above inside along with the plastic shell, LED lights, charge port, two wheels, and pressure pads which are what we normally see on the outside.
How it moves?
There are four components within the hoverboard that work together to ensure that it moves. The first of which is the wheel sensors. The wheels itself have the electric motors installed in them along with the speed/tilt sensors. The two work with the gyroscope of the hoverboard. The sensors send information about the rpm of each of the wheel to the gyroscope. The gyroscope picks the information sent from the wheels and relays it to the main logic board.
The logic board serves as the brain of the hoverboard. It basically processes all the information that is relayed from the speed of the hoverboard to the direction and tilt of each wheel. The final component in all of this is the battery pack which ensures you have enough power to have a functioning motherboard.
So the process starts from the motor in the wheels of the hoverboard and works its way to the logic board which basically controls the speed and movement of the hoverboard.
How is movement controlled?
The directional movement of the hoverboard is cleverly controlled by the pressure pads and infrared LED inside the hoverboard. You have pressure pad on each side of the board, left and right. When you want to start movement on the hoverboard, you press forward with both feet. When this is done, the pressure pad blocks the infrared LED from sending light to the sensor which starts the movement. As long as the sensor detects light, it does not move.
So if you want to turn right for example, you will need to only activate the left pressure pad which will make the left wheel only turn. There is a infrared LED and sensor on each wheel, which control which direction you go in.
The gyroscope pretty much helps with the balancing aspect of the hoverboard. The amount of pressure you put on the pressure pad determines how fast the motor spins. As you put more pressure on it, the gyroscope helps maintain the balance and ensures your center of gravity is not impacted much. Think about it, the more you lean forward, putting more pressure on the hoverboard, the more chances you have of falling off of it and tumbling forward. However, the gyroscope works to ensure you don’t do that as it works to balance the board accordingly.
That basically sums of the science behind the mechanics of a hoverboard. It may seem a little complicated but the components within the hoverboard work quite well with one another to ensure that is functions well. That is why it is important that you don’t mess with the interior of the hoverboard unless you know what you are doing. Think of it like a car, whenever something goes wrong you are better off taking it to a mechanic than trying to fix it on your own. So do the same with the hoverboard.
