Quadcopter Chronicles - I

So, i've decided to build my own drone from scratch. Here is a picture of the work in progress. The orange PLA chassis was printed on my 3D printer. It is going to be similar to the Crazyflie with a few modifications. So, why not buy the Crazyflie ? well, no fun in that...

So this is the X configuration. The slits have been cut into the motor housing to account for the error in the print caused by the 3D printer. I've observed with my printer that, if i give the hole diameter as 7.03 mm it always turns out to be less by around 0.2-0.1 mm, which is the error. When this happens the motors do not pass through the hole and i have to sit and file it which results in inconsistencies in the 4 holes.

By giving the same value of 7.03 mm is the diameter of the motor and a slit the motors can be accommodated in a tight fit by wedging the slit to allow the motors to pass though, removing the wedge causes the structure to wrap tightly around the motor due to it's elastic nature. 

Also there is something weird in the image below. If you figure it out leave a comment.

The body was designed in SolidWorks as shown below and weighs 9 grams. Yep, that is a lot of green, almost a relation fest, but i am learning to clean that up. Most of it is the symmetry relation due to mirroring the entities.

The motors and props are similar to the one used in the Crazyflie. The next task is to design the control system electronics.


If you would like to download the 3D STL model visit my Thingiverse link below:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1336837

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