Ask HN: DIY quadcopter tutorial?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8704235

by frik • 12 years ago

9 4 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I am searching for a good and up-to-date DIY quadcopter tutorial incl. shopping list (up to 2000$). I would favor a project based around an Arduino Mega/Due for the flight logic and motor controller.

Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNrovqSp3CU (but with more details in english)

uberneo• 12 years ago

Below sites have really good info on DIY drones --

http://wiki.paparazziuav.org/wiki/Main_Page -- Open source -- Hardware n software for DRONES

http://1bitsquared.com/ -- really tiny miny hardware for drones

http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/arduino/ --- Useful libraries for RF on Arduino

http://story.glass/uav -- Good explanation of buiding your own drones -- more material on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8566641

http://www.exmaps.com/ -- Share your drone data

http://ardupilot.com/ -- Auto pilot stuff

http://diydrones.com/ -- good drones material for starters

dirktheman• 12 years ago

Whoa… 2 grand? That’s really a lot! If this is your First build, I guarantee you will crash it at some point. You will break stuff. I’d much, much rather crash my 150-bucks quad than a 2000-bucks video drone.

You can build a nice entry-level quadcopter for around $250,-: You actually don't need that much: - Frame (F330 clone $8.90) - Motors x4 (Turnigy 1000kv, $18.20) - ESC's x4 (Turnigy 30A, $9.99, flash them with SimonK) - Flight Controller (KK2.1, € 29.99) - Transmitter + receiver (Turnigy 9x, € 59.99) - Props (2CW, 2CCW, $2.46 per 2. Do get extras!) - Battery (2200Mah 3S 25C, $10.57) - Charger (Turnigy Balance charger, $22.95) Total cost: a couple cents over $250. You can do even cheaper when shopping around Chinese webshops, but this should give you a pretty good idea. All of these parts are from Hobbyking, by the way. (Edit: formatting)

Having built and flown a couple of them, I highly recommend the APM flight controller. It’s highly configurable, but flies very well from the start. As opposed to (my experience) the MultiWii, for instance.

I order everything from Chinese webshops (dx.com and banggood.com) and they are faultless. Quality is okay, prices are rock bottom and customer service is surprisingly good.

This was a great article when I started out: http://fpvcentral.net/2013/03/high-performance-quadcopter-fo...

sk2code• 12 years ago

That's a pretty good info for starting the project. I have promised my 8 year old to build one for him. I will surely start checking out all these websites and visit the store (dx.com & bangood.com).

So we should be able to get all these different components from these 2 stores or there are some other online stores anyone is willing to share.

LukeFitzpatrick• 12 years ago

I know a group of cool guys building a quad copter. It seems like a few of these projects are popping up.

DIY quadcopter tutorial, sorry I don't know of one, but you could try going to the closest University to your house and chat to the mechanical engineering department.

Ask HN: DIY quadcopter tutorial?

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