What I Wish I Knew - When I Built My First Quad

It’s official. You’ve been bitten by the bug, and you are hooked on multirotors. There’s nothing else you’d rather be doing, either. You’ve been flying your Blade Nano QX around for a while, but now your fingers are twitching to build a real quadcopter.

In my last post on Flite Test, I wrote about what I wish I knew before I bought my first quadcopter. This time, it’s going to be the next step – what I wish I knew before I built my first quadcopter.

I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, and literally paid for some of them too – so here’s hoping that you can learn from my mistakes!

Tip #1: Get a good radio upfront

You’ll have (hopefully) many models, but you’ll have one radio to control them all. Your radio is your most important investment, because it’s your only link to the hundreds of dollars you have in the air hundreds of feet away from you!

Even if it may seem like a lot to spend at first, it’s a good idea to fork out the cash at the start and get a good radio. Otherwise, you’ll find the cheaper radios to be very limiting as you grow in the hobby.

My personal favorite is the FrSky Taranis X9D Plus, and this is the same radio used by top FPV pilots like Charpu, Mr Steele, and Skitzo.

The Taranis is a $200 radio that has features that compare to other $1000 radios. It’s simple enough for you to figure to use as a newbie, but complex enough to accommodate even more advanced tasks.

If $200 is out of your budget, and there’s just no way you can get it to work, get a radio that can be expanded over time, like the Turnigy (or FlySky) 9X. The Turnigy 9X has swappable modules, so you can use more powerful and robust radio technology as you need it, and with a little tinkering (or using a SmartieParts 9Xtreme board), you can flash more robust firmware on it and make it almost as good as a Taranis.

If you are really up for tinkering, you can even swap out the gimbals for Aurora radio gimbals, which are much smoother than the stock Turnigy gimbals.

However, by the time you upgrade the module, add a SmartieParts board, and swap out the gimbals (at which point your radio will be as good as a Taranis), you’ll have spent around $250!

Tip #2: Decide what kind of flying you want to do

Most of the ready to fly quads I spoke about in the last post are pretty generic and can train you to fly any kind of larger quadcopter.

However, when it comes to building your own quadcopter, you’ll have to choose up front what kind of flying you want to do.

Basically, when it comes to quadcopters (or even hexa or octocopters), there are two main types of flying: aerial photography/docile flight and racing/acrobatic/aggressive flight.

Each of the two flying styles has its own benefits and appeals, but when you build your first quadcopter, you’ll have to decide what kind of flying you want to do before you get your frame. Of course, you can always build a second or even third or fourth quadcopter for another purpose, but since this is your first build, your budget is probably going to be tight so you want to get it right on the first go!

I actually made the mistake of getting a DJI Flamewheel 450 as my first quadcopter. Now don’t get me wrong – the Flamewheel 450 is an awesome quadcopter for its purpose (aerial photography), but I soon felt that slow flight was boring and what I really wanted to do was race and fly acro.

So I sold the 450 and ended up getting a 250 sized racing quadcopter instead.

So the type of frame you get will dictate what kind of motors and propellers you can use, and motors and propellers dictate the kind of flight you can do.

Slower-spinning (low KV) motors are larger and meant to spin larger propellers, which are more efficient and provide more lift, but are less zippy.

Faster-spinning (high KV) motors are smaller and meant to spin smaller propellers (6 inches and below), which are much zippier and suited for racing and acrobatic flying.

So if you want to do aerial photography, get a larger frame that can take larger motors and larger propellers, and if you want to get into racing and acro, get the smaller frame which is suited for smaller motors and smaller propellers.

You’ll also have to consider the flight controller you use. In smaller acro frames, you won’t use GPS and autopilots, and in larger AP frames, it’s a good idea to have GPS and autopilots.

Tip #3: Do your research and watch build videos

Even after you figure out the type of multirotor you want to build, there’s still a myriad of choices available as far as frames, motors, ESCs, and propellers go.

Luckily there’s also no shortage of resources on the Internet where you can do research on other people’s builds. For your first build, it’s a good idea to copy someone else’s build to the letter. As you evolve in the hobby and learn more about components, you can do more advanced custom builds.

For my first build, I followed the low cost build by Bruce Simpson from RCModelReviews. He’s got a 5-part video series detailing every step of the build, and just watching the videos taught me a lot about building techniques.

Go through other resources, too. Here are some of my favorites:

• Flite Test, of course!

• Reddit Multicopter

• Reddit Multicopterbuilds

Tip #4: Get a good soldering iron (and learn to solder, too!)

In building quadcopters, one skill you’ll have to learn is soldering. There will be tons of soldering on your builds, and tons more when you’ll inevitably repair your builds.

Some of the things you’ll have to solder are:

• Your motors to your ESCs

• Your ESCs to your power distribution

• An adapter to your pigtail to connect to the battery

• Your FPV gear’s wires

Soldering itself is not that hard – a couple of practice runs and you’ll be OK.

However, if you don’t have a good soldering iron, soldering will be a huge PITA and will seem impossible!

I confess that I’m still guilty of having a subpar soldering iron, and I always dread soldering large connections simply because my iron just can’t get the connections hot enough for solder to flow properly!

Anyhow, get a good soldering iron and learn to solder!

Tip #5: Practice on a simulator and start with rate mode

This is especially relevant if you fly FPV, since you won’t have much FPV practice from flying an RTF quadcopter.

Practicing FPV on the simulator – especially in rate mode, where the quadcopter does not level itself automatically – will help build muscle memory so you will be more comfortable when you are actually flying.

You can safely screw up as much as you want, too, because crashing is free! No costly repairs to worry about!

There are two simulators as of now that I’d really recommend: FPV Freerider and Liftoff. FPV Freerider is more basic, and can be purchased for just $5, and Liftoff is much more robust and lets you tweak a lot more settings, but is more costly at $20 right now.

Liftoff is still in development so you can get it cheaper. I imagine it will be more expensive when the final version comes out.

The cool thing about both Freerider and Liftoff is that you can use your radio with them. If you have a Taranis, it’s as simple as plugging it into your computer using the USB cable. If you have a radio without USB, you can use a USB simulator dongle.

Simulators are also good for trying out new crazy maneuvers, too!

Tip #6: If you are building a race quad, start with 4S

Lipo batteries have different cell counts: 1S, 2S, 3S, 4S, 5S, and 6S. Most medium-large quads will take 3S and 4S batteries, and really large rigs may require 6S batteries, too.

The more cells there are, the more voltage there is and the faster your motors spin.

For a typical race quad or even a quad like a DJI Flamewheel, 3S or 4S will do. However, if you plan on building an acro quad, make sure your hardware can handle 4S and just jump right in.

For me, 3S became too slow too soon, and I wanted to step up to 4S, but since I had followed the budget build, my ESCs could not handle the extra current provided by 4S.

So to upgrade, I had to get new ESCs – an extra $50 I could have saved by spending $12 more on the get go.

4S is significantly faster than 3S, but that’s where you want to reach anyway, so you may as well start there.

You won’t find it as overwhelming especially if you’ve practiced on a simulator in advance!

Tip #7: Use a PDB

A PDB, or Power Distribution Board is a neat and tidy way to connect all of your power wires. You solder all your wires onto pads on the board, matching negative to negative and positive to positive, and provided you’ve done it correctly, you’ll neatly power your whole quadcopter.

You can do a build without a PDB, but I feel it’s not worth cheaping out on a $5 purchase and ending up with a messy quadcopter.

I actually did cheap out at first. My initial build was just a MESS of wires that I had to ziptie to keep in place. In short, it was ugly.

Looking at the disaster it was, I ordered a $6 PDB from Banggood and ended up with a much neater build.

In my latest build, I got a really neat PDB which lets you route the video wire, too – so your whole build ends up really, really tidy.

If you don’t use a PDB, your wiring will take up all the floor space on your quad, leaving little room for other components. Using a PDB lets you raise the wires a little, and you’ll also have room under the PDB (provided you raise it a little using standoffs) to stick your receiver or anything else you wish.

Tip #8: Make sure you have the right hardware

There’s nothing more annoying than getting halfway through a build and realizing you don’t have some small part. If you live near a large hardware store like Home Depot, your annoyance goes as far as having to drive down there, parsing through aisles and aisles and finally finding that one screw or standoff.

If you live in a more remote area, you’ll have to order online and wait for it to come – pushing back your build so many more days!

When you start your build, stock up on some of these items:

• M3 bolts (length depends on what you’re building)

• M2 bolts for FPV cameras

• M3 nuts

• M2 nuts

• M3 nylon screws, standoffs, nuts

• M2 nylon screws, standoffs, nuts

• Metal and rubber washers

• Heat shrink of varied diameters

• Lots of zip ties

• Silicone wire, various AWG

It’s very annoying to buy just 2 or 3 M3 screws, but you can find a whole set on eBay.

Tip #9: Dry-fit everything first

Before you solder or glue anything in place, dry-fit everything to make sure it all fits! This is especially relevant on smaller frames where real estate is much more scarce.

When I say everything, I truly mean everything. Probably all you really know where you are placing is your motors, since the arms are the only place they can fit!

But your flight controller (if it’s not something you bolt down, like a CC3D), your receiver, your VTx, and any other components must be dry-fitted before you break out the soldering iron. This way there are no surprises through your build where you suddenly realize you have no room left to place an important component.

These 9 tips are what I feel are most important and help you avoid as much frustration as possible. If you have any more tips, please do share them in the comments!