So I’m Building a Quadcopter
A what? A quadcopter. Don’t make me say it again. A quadcopter. Okay, now you’ve gone too far. I supposed you want me to explain it to you now, huh? Fine.
A quadcopter is a helicopter with 4 propellers on it, all spinning parallel to the ground (if it flies correctly, that is). I’m of course, speaking of the remote controlled variety–what did you think I was crazy? I’m acquiring the pieces and parts to make one on my own, rather than buying a kit, which I seriously considered doing before impatience and curiosity got the better of me. You see, I started saving for a RTF (Ready To Fly) kit, but saving wasn’t going as fast as I wanted it to, so I took what I had saved so far and went to home depot and got some frame fixins. That night I build this:
That was the situation a week ago. Since then as I’m ordering parts, I’ve changed the plan to a quadcopter since the off-the-shelf FY-90Q controller (The one I’m buying so I don’t have to become a circuit board solder maniac) only works with 4-rotor aircraft, so I’ve pruned two arms.
So that’s where I sit right now on the build. I have a parts list going that changes a lot, but once it gets closer to stable I’ll post it here. The total cost of this endeavor is going to be around $430. The only thing I have that I didn’t have to buy is a LiPo battery charger that I used for my RC cars. I’ve read a lot on RCgroups.com and found it to be a really helpful resource for this kinda thing, and even recruited two friends to dive into the RC Quadcopter world too. Ironically, they’ll probably be up in the air before I will!
One of the goals of this little project (aside from seeing if I can get the thing to fly and having some fun while learning a few things) is to experiment with a little aerial photography.
I’ll update you all on my progress. Wish me luck!
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