So, I set out to create a quad from scratch and thought that it would be cool to document the process here.

The first part will be an overview of the frame build, components and final assembly. I'll follow up later with tuning and the first flights. The thought is that this may be useful to someone else that wanted to create there own.

Frame

For the frame I decided to go with aluminum, 6061-T4 to be exact. Light and strong. I have a mini mill press so I just went to a local place and found .08 in aluminum sheets that they cut down to 5.5 inches square and some 1/2 inch square tube with 1/16 thick walls. I then milled out as much of the extra plate material and almost cut the places weight in half.

Here are the 2 halves laid out. But I will end up going back to mill out more to make room for the wiring and such.

A note in finding the aluminum locally.  I think most areas with any sort of industrial zones will probably have similar suppliers, they just aren't as easy to find for the hobbyist, as they cater to more knowledgable clientel. But if you hit the yellow pages and search for metal working or fabrication and ask around you will eventually be directed to a place that will have what you need.

I dry fit the booms to the plates to see how it all fit together and it seemed to go together well. All I can say here is to double check your measurements. I actually messed up one plate and had to go get another. 

With the plate I messed up I created some custom motor mounts. These are just oval shaped so I can bolt all 4 screws in the bottom of the motor and get a good flat fit against the boom arms.

You can also see that I drilled out some extra holes in the plates to make them lighter and I fitted a plexy glass landing strut.

Once all the pieces were done I painted the frame and mounted the motors. I also cut more material out of the plates and drilled a series of holes in the bottom of the booms to eliminate more weight.

Wiring

So, here I was able to run all the wire through the booms and tie it all together in the center between the two plates. I created my own power distribution harness by soldering together 2 groups or 4 bullet connectors, one for each battery connector wire. This ended up being fairly compact. I also put a bit of 4mm foam rubber in the booms to sandwich between the main body plates. I'm hopping this helps with vibration.

just before adding the flight control board.

More soon