Motors

Easy DIY Quadcopter Build (Part 3) – Setup

Dec 272012

December 27, 2012 Posted by Britt Batteries, Boards, Builds, Components, ESCs, Frames, Motors, Propellers, Quadcopters, Transmitters, Wiring 47 Responses »

The parts were ordered in Part 1, the quadcopter was assembled in Part 2, and now in Part 3, I cover the steps I followed to set up the quad for its maiden flight. These steps included programming the ESCs, binding the radio, setting up the KK2.0 board, and calibrating the ESCs. In part 4, I will show how I tuned the quad’s PI settings to optimize its flying capabilities. Finally, in Part 5 I will cover how I attached a GoPro camera to the quad to get some video from the air.

Continue reading to see how I set up my quad for its maiden flight…

Easy DIY Quadcopter Build (Part 2) – The Build

Dec 192012

December 19, 2012 Posted by Britt Batteries, Boards, Builds, Components, ESCs, Frames, Motors, Propellers, Quadcopters, Transmitters, Wiring 23 Responses »

In Part 1 of this post I selected parts needed for an inexpensive quadcopter that was easy to build, tune and fly. This post, Part 2, covers the details of putting it all together. In Part 3, I will set up the transmitter, ESCs and KK2.0 board so I can make a maiden flight. In part 4, I will show how I tuned the quad’s PI settings to optimize its flying capabilities. Finally, in Part 5 I will cover how I attached a GoPro camera to the quad to get some video from the air.

Continue reading to see the build details… Continue reading »

Easy DIY Quadcopter Build (Part 1) – The Parts List

Dec 122012

December 12, 2012 Posted by Britt Batteries, Boards, Builds, Components, ESCs, Frames, Motors, Propellers, Quadcopters, Transmitters, Wiring 120 Responses »

Solid, Easy, Inexpensive DIY Quadcopter Build

I get a lot of nice comments from folks saying my site helped them when they were building their first quadcopter. However, I have never done a post where I walked through the steps of building a quadcopter from start to finish. So, I wanted to step through a quality build that is easy on the budget, easy to build, and easy to fly. I built this quad with the beginner in mind, yet this is a very solid quadcopter.

In Part 1 of this post I will cover my requirements and the parts list. In Part 2, I will go through the detailed steps I went through to build this quad, and in Part 3, I will set up the transmitter, ESCs and KK2.0 board so I can make a maiden flight. In part 4, I will show how I tuned the quad’s PI settings to optimize its flying capabilities. Finally, in Part 5 I will cover how I attached a GoPro camera to the quad to get some video from the air.

Continue reading to see the requirements and parts list I used for this build…
Continue reading »

HobbyKing Quadcopter Part Availability

Sep 302012

September 30, 2012 Posted by Britt Batteries, Boards, Components, ESCs, Frames, Motors, Propellers, Transmitters, Wiring 3 Responses »

I have added a new menu item to the top of the blog that links to a page showing the availability of quadcopter parts at HobbyKing. These parts are often on backorder, so I use the HobbyKing API to retrieve the current quantity of parts in inventory. Because the page has to retrieve all these inventory levels, it may take a while to load. I show positive inventory in green and negative inventory in red.

I mostly listed parts that I have used and that are discussed on my blog. For the most part, they are parts that can be used to build a standard size 450mm (motor to motor) quadcopter. Hopefully, this page will give folks easy access to the availability of these commonly used quadcopter parts in one place.

I didn’t include batteries or chargers on the list. There were too many different size batteries available with various C ratings and prices to add to the list. I like the high capacity 3S Zippy compact batteries. They are pretty inexpensive and smaller than most other batteries. They don’t have super high C ratings, but the ones with larger capacities have worked well for me.

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