I was able to get my wife to shoot a quick video of the quadcopter with my iPhone. It wasn't the maiden flight because I couldn't wait this long to fly it, but it was the third flight. I'm really impressed with how well it flies for my first quad and very little adjustment.

Home Built Quadcopter

I came across some online videos of radio controlled, multi-rotor crafts, and was fascinated with them. Quadcopters seem to be the most common, but there are also tricopters and octocopters as well. Many have cameras mounted to them and take some pretty impressive aerial photos and videos. Of course, the problem is, they range from not cheap to down right expensive.

While looking around the web, I did find a ton of information about homemade DIY versions that were much more cost effective. Now me, being the tinkerer that I am, decided that DIY was the way to go. Cost was a factor on whether or not to attempt it at all, but I already had the radio equipment and a bunch of the parts so I figured most of the cost was going to be covered.

The most expensive part I had to buy was the flight control board, but Hobby King had a sale on the KK2 board with accelerometers for auto leveling for only $19.99 I think the regular cost is $29.99 and still a bargain.

I already had a two motors and speed controls, so I only needed two more of each for a few bucks on eBay. I'm using Emax CF2822 motors and some cheap SkyWalker 20 amp speed controls. I know there are much better motors and ESC's, but I already had some of them and wanted to do this for as next to no cost as I could.

I haven't flown it outside yet, but I did test it indoors to make sure it actually has enough thrust to take off. It DOES!! I only flew it a foot or so off the ground to test it and was able to hover it briefly before setting it down. It was only a test after all.  I'll try to get a video when I take it out for a maiden flight.

Of course, there's always the chance that the maiden flight will be followed by scooping up a bag of parts, so if I'm gonna get a video, I better do it on the first flight.

Starting below are the construction pictures and descriptions:

Paper template made on Corel Draw. Motor to motor dimension is 500mm.

Cutting the center plates from 3mm Baltic Birch plywood on the scrollsaw. I stacked the plywood four high so I would have the two I needed plus two spares.

Center plates all cut and drilled.

3/4 inch square aluminum tubing cut to length and drilling templates attached with spray adhesive.

Motor mount holes

Larger holes on the bottom for screwdriver access to mount motors.

Pattern attached and cutting decorative scrolls on the side of the arms.

Arms ready for paint.

Painted black with yellow accents. Prior to painting, I sprayed them with self etching primer.

Frame assembled with power distribution board sandwiched between center plates.

KK2 Flight Board, receiver, battery alarm and the rest of the electronics installed.

 

Bottom showing the 3 cell 40C 2200mAH Lithium Polymer battery that I already had. The battery is attached with some Velcro cable wraps.

Ready to fly! The orange ping pong ball is to designate the front so I'll know which way it's facing in flight. The dome is a lid from a cheap dollar store container. One side is hinged and it's held closed by a rubber band. Many people mount the speed controls to top of the arms, but I decided to put them in the center plates to make it look cleaner. I used sticky back Velcro to mount them to the center plates.

The landing gears are 3/4" wooden dowels with a machine screw epoxied in the center.

Update Flight Video