Many people don’t know what should they buy for DIY a quadcopter? And how to DIY a quadcopter which can flight longer and higher? Now I will tell you how to DIY a quadcopter like this .
Next I will tech you how to DIY a large quadcopter, what do you need? How to test and assemble the system?
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Materials |
Usage |
Mini quadcopter |
Large quadcopter |
|
Frame |
Provide basic support and bearing variety of equipment, it need high strength and light weight |
Light weight, low load requirements, PCB can meet the demand |
High load requirements, up to several kilograms, Commonly used nylon, carbon fiber, they are high-strength low-weight materials |
|
Motors |
spin the propellers |
Brush motor, it is very light |
Brushless motor, to provide more lift |
|
Electronic Speed Control |
tells the motors how fast to spin at any given time |
Don’t need, Motor based on the voltage controlled power,voltage output control by PWM |
Brushless motors have a special sequence control, and need large current output, you can buy a brand Electronic Speed Control. |
|
Propellers |
A quadcopter has four propellers, two “normal” propellers that spin counter-clockwise, and two “pusher” propellers that spin clockwise. |
Small propellers |
Larger and Thicker propellers, To provide more lift |
|
Battery |
Power source, use lipo batteries |
Voltage: 3.7v, capacity: hundreds mAh Flight time: 5-8 mins |
Boltage: 11.1V, you can use 3 3.7v lipo battery in Series or buy a 3s lipo battery. Capacity: Thousands mAh Flight time: 8-15 mins |
|
Battery Charger |
To charge the lipo batteries |
Balance charger |
Balance charger |
|
Main Control Board |
Control the flight condition |
PCB is its main control board |
Dedicated main Control Board, with its Own stability program; External inputs and outputs used to dock |
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Remote control
|
To control your quadcopter |
Bluetooth: control by your phone 2.4G radio: Dedicated remote control |
2.4G radio: Long distance control, Dedicated remote control |
|
Auxiliary materials |
Used for splicing machines and fixtures equipment. |
Don’t need |
DIY a large quadcopter, you need: sillicone, heat-shrink tube, power distribution, screw, Battery voltage alarm and so on. |
These are my Materials:
Balance charger
3S lipo battery
Propellers
The motors are the most expensive
ESC,3 black lines together are control lines, red with black is power line, they can supply power to the main control board, the red line and black hookup battery.
Brushless motor
Frame with landing gear, 450mm, it is very large
Auxiliary materials, the power source in the right, the measurement of battery voltage alarm near to it.
Because I Debug the system of the large quadcopter by myself, I did not choose the finished fly control and remote control, I just DIY a crazyfile flight control board.
This is the reason of why I choose crazyfile board:
1 Open source systems,
2 Reasonable system architecture, more complete help documentation and system documentation
After you choose flight control program, we should make a plan about development. DIY a flight control program is not like buy a finished product, most finished products are very Reliable, you even don’t need test and fly it. But DIY a fly control can’t do it, you must test more carefully , so you can have a flight test, or it will be very dangerous, because the motor and the plane body are very heavy.
First, we should test the motor part of the flight control, because I use the crazyfile, so the system can work well, but you need control the brushless motor by Electronic Speed Control, flight control use pwm to control ESC is not very simple, General ESC received signal range from 50Hz to 4xxHz , because the ESC received motor speed control signal not only get a Duty cycle. The actual use of the PPM signal, a simple point, in a pulse, 1ms high level on behalf of the lowest throttle, The throttle level of 2ms represents the maximum of the throttle, and the other time is low. The 0-100% of Throttle control is controlled by the high level 1ms-2ms pulse. So the signal at least 2ms cycle. 500Hz frequency.
First transformation the circuit board of crazyflie
Pull out the power source and hook up the ESC 5V ouput port, docking the ESC PWM signal is a small board of Crazyflie, pad is very weak, so you must Fixed the lines carefully. I used two official PWN interfaces, it is easy welding, and the two others lead from the small expanded hole; then we need change the drive;
Hookup a ESC to the power source board, Transformation the battery interfaces, hookup the flight control board power interface, Provide power to the flight control board. PWM signal input line leads out, docking the flight control board;
Use the crazyfile on PC, you can see many data information, I don’t have dedicated remote control, so I use my xbox one to control to push the accelerator and test the speed of the motors;
If there are no problems, you can test all the ESC and motors first, be sure everything are OK.
If there are no problems, you can test all the ESC and motors first, be sure everything are OK.
After motors control, I can begin to assembly, frame assembly is very simple;
Installed power distribution board
First turn on the power and flight control board, debug the rotation direction of the motor, keep up with crazyflie, Brushless motor change the motors direction, just exchange 2 of the 3 input signals.
Confirm is it Ok? fixed flight control board;
Propellers must use a screwdriver to tighten,
Complete assembly,
Tie up all the lines.
Crazyflie flight control
Very larger Propeller,
Special apron
End, I have finished it, this is my DIY quadcopter. DIY a quadcopter is a very difficult things, you must have a perfect plan and it may cost you much times, You need to have enough patience, read more books about quadcopters. And one important step I think is choose good motors and lipo battery, the motors and battery decide how long your quadcopter flight, you shold have a survey and count before you buy materials. Though it is not very wonderful and beautiful, but if you have any advice or questions, you can leave in the comment.
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