Here is the laser cut acrylic mocked up...the laser doesn't do well with G10 so I had to find someone that would cut it for me until I build my own router. 

Here is the main plate with the carrier boards. I have the vibration mounts(black things) supporting the carrier boards. The APM is mounted on top of the first carrier board with the Xbee on the very top. 

here is the bottom half of the copter. the battery tray is on the bottom. the battery slides in between the two pieces. 

and lastly, here are both pieces together. the arms will sit between the two big main plates.

i have one g10 piece to cut by hand. i'll post more pics when it's done.

After a long arduous process of getting my copter up in the air, it finally flies. I was happy with it for a week or so but am now unhappy with the CD Case body/frame that I'm currently sporting. So I decided to design a frame that was perfect for my needs.

I did all the work in AutoCAD(sorry about the colors). It's a mashup of my own design and the official Arducopter design, among others.

First up I have a Quad & Hexa version. These main plates (as I call them) are the foundation of the frame.

Next up I have the carrier plate...this gets stacked on top of the main plates and the APM gets mounted to it.You'll notice the similarity of the slots to the official Arducopter design...

On the bottom of the main plate I have my battery tray.

Stacked up, it looks like this.

I use all #6-32 screws with varying lengths. I also use vibration isolators for the APM & Camera mount(more on this in another post). To finish it off I'm going to cover it with a 6" Diameter acrylic dome on top.

The arm grips.

I have all this mocked up in laser cut acrylic and am trying to find someone to cut out the final pieces in G10. I don't have a CNC router and am trying to cut them freehand, but it's proving to be very difficult. I am planning on building a CNC router at some point, just not yet... More posts to follow with more pictures of the mocked up frame and my freehand attempt of the final version.