UAV with Chumby Hacker Board – Frame & Material Selection - Blogs

Following up on my first post here, I have moved on to designing the airframe that will carry my Chumby Hacker Board.

I am by no means a mechanical engineer, and I have no experience with aircraft design. I decided to stick with the DIYdrone’s model quadcopter since it is open sourc. No offence to bunnie, but the Chumby Hacker Board is rather large in comparison to the APM and Oilpan. It would fit on the standard size carrier board, but it would cover up 2 of the 4 holes for the screws. I imagine it would make the plate pretty unstable so I enlarged the main plate and carrier board to fit.

Doing some rough comparisons between images of other quadcopters and my enlarged pieces, I don’t believe there will be any conflict in attaching the standard dome and landing gear to the arms. If anyone is willing to confirm via 3D modeling, I’d appreciate it.

I decided to use the Ponoko to laser cut a single main plate to see how the service and materials were. I chose 3.2mm Delrin plastic for the main plate and I am very pleased with it. It is very rigid and durable. I am thinking I could probably go with the 2.3mm sheet for the other pieces. It does not feel like it would crack or shatter like acrylic would in a major crash. The main plate weighs 53 grams. As for price, it was about $20.00 USD for the materials and labor, and Ponoko charged another $9 for shipping. A little pricey compared to other options, but I think it is a pretty good balance between durability and price. I will be submitting my order for the rest of the carrier boards and plates soon—all made from Delrin.

Here are some photos of the main plate:

Here are the EPS files for the enlarged plates:

main_square_xl.eps

carrier_board_xl.eps

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Comments

Ethan Ferrell March 22, 2011 at 8:59pm

Updated the post. The main plate weighs in at about 53 grams. Once I get the other parts in I'll post up on them as well.
Ethan Ferrell March 22, 2011 at 6:06pm

Yeah. I might not, but for other who want to use the same design. I didn't mean to post this yet because I haven't weighed the plate yet, lol. I thought I saved this as a draft but whatever...I'll update it with how much the plate weighs in a few hours. Had to find a scale.
Jesse March 22, 2011 at 5:53pm

Looks good so far.

Do you mean you want to attach the standard sized dome and landing gear to your enlarged base plate and arms?

This reply was deleted.