build your own quadcopter

DIY Quadcopter Build

As with any project, the first step in a DIY quadcopter build is planning – you need to determine your parts list, make sure everything is compatible, and finally order the parts. This step in and of itself can be incredibly time consuming and frustrating, especially for someone like me who doesn’t have a lot of experience with RC aircraft. It took a ton of research over several months, poring over blogs, forum posts, and Chinese parts suppliers’ shady websites before I felt that I had a proper understanding of what I needed. The best advice I can give someone who is embarking on a DIY quadcopter build project is to find a parts list from someone more experienced and try to use the same parts. Once you’ve built one or two of your own machines, you will have a much better idea of which parts are compatible with each other and how you can modify or upgrade certain parts of the quadcopter to make it perform exactly the way you want. I want to give a shout out to OddCopter for having such an amazing build guide with parts list. I wasn’t able to get everything mentioned in that post because a few things were out of stock, but it is a great starting point and my first build will be largely based on that guide. After a handful of false starts and abandoned shopping carts I finally pulled the trigger on a batch of parts from HobbyKing. There are other suppliers but I wanted to be able to get everything from one place, in one order if possible. Aside from the quadcopter frame I was able to do so. Here’s what I ordered:

Frame

UPDATE: I do not recommend the wooden HobbyKing frame originally featured in this post. The frame and landing gear are weak and flimsy and my package was missing parts and hardware. You’re better off buying a more legit frame kit or building your own from scratch.

See a few of the DIY quadcopter frames I’ve built since this post was first published.

I recently rebuilt this quadcopter on a DJI Flame Wheel F450. Read my Flame Wheel F450 review.

If you are interested in getting all the parts from one vendor in one order, I’d recommend this Glass Fiber Quadcopter Frame 450mm – Integrated PCB Version (DJI Flame Wheel F450 clone) from HobbyKing. For $12 it is a solid buy.

I couldn’t get the frame recommended in the OddCopter list because it was backordered, so I settled on this frame:

I like this frame for a few reasons:

It was in stock. I’ve learned that out of stock parts are a huge problem for multirotor enthusiasts. Especially when you don’t quite know what you’re doing yet it can be really discouraging to think you’ve finally settled on your parts list only to find out that one crucial piece is backordered. I got this frame from the HobbyKing USA warehouse which means that it arrived before my larger order from the International warehouse in Hong Kong.

It’s cheap. At just over $20 including shipping this is a very affordable frame. It’s made of wood so it won’t be as durable as carbon fiber or other more advanced materials but the fact of the matter is there will be a learning curve on flying this thing so I don’t want to risk breaking a $150 frame on my first flight. The frame is definitely one of the first things I’ll want to upgrade once I get up and running. I’ll also be looking into building my own frame(s).

It has an attached camera platform with rubber vibration dampeners:

many quadcopter builders out there, I want to eventually attach a GoPro or FPV camera system to my quadrotor so I can get some sweet aerial video footage. While I’m sure this frame’s camera mount isn’t as stable as having an advanced gimbal with dedicated servos, it at least offers a convenient place to strap in a GoPro with some vibration dampening.

Control Board

HobbyKing KK2.0 Multi-Rotor LCD Flight Control Board. This board is pretty popular, seems relatively straightforward to configure, and because so many people use it there are a lot of resources out there for instructions and guidance. It’s also got settings for all types of multi-rotors so later on if I decide to build a tricopter or octocopter this board will work for that as well. I also ordered one of these to load different firmwares on the board: USBasp AVR Programming Device for ATMEL proccessors.

ESCs (Electronic Speed Controllers)

Turnigy Plush 25A Speed Controllers These are slightly different from the 30A ESCs recommended on the OddCopter guide (those were backordered) but they should work as the max current of the motors is 21A. Cutting it close, but I think it will be OK.

TURNIGY BESC Programming Card

Motors

D2830-11 1000kv Brushless Motors. Pretty standard motors, not the cheapest ones out there but not the most expensive either.

Propellers

Slow Fly Electric Prop 9047 and Slow Fly Electric Prop 9047R SF

Radio

Turnigy 9X 9Ch Transmitter w/ Module & 8ch Receiver. OddCopter mentions a cheaper option which is a 4 channel radio for the low low price of $23, but I opted for a slightly more expensive 9 channel system so I’ve got room to grow if I decide to use this radio for future projects.

Battery, Charger & Battery Strap

Turnigy nano-tech 2650mah 3S 25~50C Lipo Pack

IMAX B6-AC Charger/Discharger 1-6 Cells

Turnigy Battery Strap 330mm

Connectors

3.5mm 3 wire Bullet Connectors 

10CM Male to Male Servo Lead 

Nylon XT60 Connectors

Conclusion

That’s pretty much it. I have a soldering iron, wire of various gauges, and basic tools already from previous projects. I bought some heat shrink tubing on Amazon which always comes in handy for projects like this. Total cost for all parts was under $350 which includes a little over $50 for shipping from China for the large order consisting of everything but the frame. My next post will cover the basic assembly once the parts arrive.

Now how to  assemble it

In the first post in this series, I went through all the parts I ordered to assemble my quadcopter. Everything has arrived and now it’s time to get busy building! The first step is to assemble most of the frame so you have somewhere to attach the rest of the components. The basic principles of a quadcopter frame are the same even if yours is a different model. You need four arms to hold motors, propellers and speed controllers; center plate(s) to hold the battery, flight controller, and receiver; and landing gear or skids to support the quadcopter and take the brunt of the impact on any hard landings.

UPDATE: The wood HobbyKing frame I initially purchased turned out to be really shoddy and weak. One of the arms broke irreparably on one of my first flights. After several iterations of DIY quadcopter frames, I got a DJI Flame Wheel F450 frame which is durable and affordable. The build outlined in this post is obviously based on the HobbyKing frame, but the general steps are still the same as far as the non-frame components go.

The first step for my frame is to attach the four arms to the large center plate and secure them with nylon nuts & bolts.  I used a little bit of superglue on each joint as well for added stability.

Next I installed four long nylon screws pointing up on the top of the large center plate. This is where the flight control board will go.

Then, I put the four large nylon spacers on the smaller center plate. This will create the internal space where the battery will rest.

Here’s my frame after I placed the KK2.0 flight control board on the four mounting bolts and popped the small center plate into position below the large center plate. Make sure all the notches in the wood line up so that you have a tight fit and all four of the nylon bolts attached to the lower (small) center plate are sticking up through the larger plate so that you can attach bolts to keep everything together. I tried using the landing gear that came with this frame, but it is extremely flimsy and mine was missing parts needed to assemble it, so I ended up building my own landing gear and getting rid of the included one.

Next step is to attach the motors to the ends of the arms. My frame’s arms came pre-drilled for several different motor sizes so it was easy to attach the motors.

It’s actually starting to look like a quadcopter now!

The next few steps involve soldering connectors on the ESCs to connect them to the motors and making a wiring harness to attach everything to the battery. It is possible to save time by buying ESCs that come pre-wired with connectors but the ones I wanted were backordered and I have a lot of experience soldering so I didn’t mind having to wire everything up myself. You will definitely want to use a heatsink whenever you are soldering anything to an ESC because they can be damaged by too much heat. I bought some of these 3 wire bullet connectors for connecting my ESCs to my motors to keep everything tidy. A small clamp to hold the connectors while you solder the wires to them comes in very handy.

 

ESC with connector attached:

The next step is to wire up the ESCs to be able to connect to the battery. To do this I attached two ESCs to an XT60 connector, then attached the other end of those XT60 connectors to a third XT60 connector which I soldered on to my battery leads. It isn’t pretty but it will get the job done.

Admittedly, I should have gotten a power distribution board which is essentially a tiny board with a wiring harness built into it. My DIY wiring harness was ugly and heavy so not ideal for a quadcopter, where weight is a critical factor. I’ll be ordering a power distribution board soon and that will be one of my first upgrades. UDATE: I recently got a DJI Flame Wheel F450 quadcopter frame, which has a built in power distribution board and enabled me to get rid of this ugly homemade wiring harness. See my Flame Wheel F450 review.

I attached the ESCs to the arms of the quadcopter with zipties and ran my ugly DIY wiring harness along the sides of the KK2.0 flight control board. The motor wires can be attached to the ESC connectors along the underside of the arms.

Next I attached my receiver to the center plate in front of the flight control board and connected all the wires. If you’re using a KK2.0 flight control board the ESCs should be plugged into the slots along the right side of the board (if you look at it with the buttons on the bottom). The black or brown wire from your ESCs is the ground and they should be plugged in with the ground towards the edge of the flight control board. If you’re using the quad X configuration, then the top-left motor is #1, the top-right motor is #2, the bottom-right motor is #3, and the bottom-left motor is #4.  The slots on the left side of the board are for radio channels and should be connected to your receiver, again with black or brown wires facing out. For this control board, only one of the slots needs the power wires attached (red and black/brown) so I removed them from my male-to-male servo leads for the other three channels. I later secured the receiver to the board with a little double sided tape.

The last thing to take care of from a hardware standpoint is the landing gear. The ones included with my frame were really weak so I ended up getting rid of them and building my own out of a 1″ wide aluminum strip I got at Lowe’s. I used a dremel to cut two equal lengths, 16″ each.

To shape the landing gear legs I measured six inches from each end and bent the aluminum over the front edge of a chair. Extremely high tech fabrication process here.

I attached the legs to the bottom of my quadcopter with zipties, using some pre-existing holes in the bottom center plate.

That’s it as far as construction goes. To program my ESCs, I followed the instructions in this post. For setting up the KK2 board in X-quad configuration, I read this post, used the tuning settings from this post, and I was ready for my maiden flight. It’s also a good idea to read the manual.

 Posted by Raja Mehrbanhussain