A.R. Drone Meets the FPV250

Do you have an old (or new) Parrot A.R. Drone 2.0 sitting around? If you hate it like I do, know you'll never use it again, or if its hopelessly broken (also like mine), then this article is for you! 

In this article, I will show you how to modify the central housing and outdoor hull of the A.R. Drone to fit onto a Hobbyking FPV250 quadcopter frame so you can make one snazzy looking racing quad! You can also modify the A.R. Drone's indoor hull to use to fly indoors, as prop gaurds, teaching someone to fly, etc.

What you will need:

• An A.R. Drone 2.0 (Original, Power Addition, or Elite Edition)
• A Hobbyking FPV250 quad or frame
• X-Acto Knife (One of those cheap break away blade utility knifes works too)
• A Hot Glue Gun
• A Sharpie Marker
• A.R. Drone Tool Kit (If you have a complete A.R. Drone)
• About an hour

If you dont have an A.R. Drone you can still do this too although Its probably cheaper to buy a used A.R. Drone itself because the central housing comes with that useless board camera on the front therefore making it $60 for a block of EPO foam. But if you want, Just order these two parts and be ready to cut them up.

• Central Housing (Bottom Structure)
• Outdoor Hull

Step 1:

Remove Electronics.

There are so many peices on is thing that i cant explain how to do everything, but there are plenty of videos on how to remove everything. Be careful because you can sell most of them later. You will need the A.R. Drone tool kit for this. Tip: start with the motor and props; Then, work your way inwards. To remove the camera and If you bought the 2 parts, then take the long piece of metal on top of the central housing piece and gently pry it off. Be extremely careful, there is a ribbon cale under the front of it for the camera.

Rip the camera off of the front. Then gently as before pry up the ribbon cable.

Step 2:

Take your knife and cut the battery tray away from the housing. We cant use it because the plastic stand-offs for the Flight Controller bracket are too long for our needs. Unless you want the nice foam around the top, its probably just best to just toss this. By the way, the A.R. Drone battery is probably worthless too.

Step 3: 

Now, we're going to cut the foam to fit the arms of the FPV250. Take the central housing and look for the little nocthes where the arms fit through the foam. Mark about half an inch away from the notch on each side. Cut along your marks. You should have about an inch of arm clearance since the arms of the FPV250 are very thick. Then mark and cut about an inch from the top of the housing, staying within the inch of clearance you just made. If you need to cut more then do so. This is just what worked for me.

Step 4:

We are going to modify the center of the housing to fit the hub of the frame in. All you need to do is to hold the frame up to the bottom of the central housing and mark up every where you need to cut to make the FPV250 fit inside. Then, Remove enough foam to get the housing low enough to be able to just clear the props. 

You should be able to put the housing on the FPV250 now.

Step 5:

Hot glue the A.R. Drone central housing to the front and back plates of the FPV250. Be careful to avoid the servo hole in the front if you want to use that to run your ESC leads.

Step 6:

Time to modify the hull. The hull is the magnetic cover thing that looks really cool. Just slide it on and mark where the props hit and then cut the hull to accomidate your props. 5in props seemed to give me the least problems. 

If you feel a little queasy about that magnet not holding the hull on, just add a piece of velcro.

Conclusion:

This is a really fun build and can make your racing quad look pretty sweet. If you need to, go back and do a little bit more tweaking for the prop clearence if needed. If your wondering, I converted my A.R. Drone to XT60 connectors which explains the yellow connectors. Also if you want cool landing gear like mine, find an old pool noodle and cut out a few slices. Cut a notch on the top and slip (or CA) them over the FPV250's landing gear. Questions and comments in the box below. Thanks!!