I have received a few messages asking for a more complete blog post about my drone I've designed and am building for my High School senior project!
It took me 3 months to learn CAD, and finish designing everything about this drone, the only part I left out was the skin.. You have to fit the skin your self. I used 1mm depron foam, and over covered the whole wing, then trimmed off the excesses after pinning it to the wings, ext.
I have covered this whole plane in clear packing tape giving the whole plane a nice gloss, and very strong!! Also the carbon fiber rods for the tail booms, and the wing rods are a peice of art all on their own. I used segments of 5mm carbon fiber tubes, using 2-3mm carbon fiber rods to link the rods together.
The main wing section is permanently attached to the fuselage, how ever the wing tips pull off, allowing it to fit in your car.
In case the video dosnt load here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nulS86MtEIU
Material List for drone as shown:
(2) 9mm depron sheets [wings]
(3) 6mm depron sheets [fuselage, wing ribs, formers]
(6-7) 1mm depron sheets [skin]
(4) 5mm carbon fiber round tubes
(1-2) 2mm or 3mm carbon fiber rods
(1) 6mm balsa wood square stick [engine mount, and frame re-enforcement]
(4) Gorilla Glue [dries white 2x faster, perfect glue!]
(3-4) Clear packing tape [overall re-enforcement, also used to mount skin to wings!]
(1) spray can of tacky glue [glue cad plans to foam for accurate cuts]
Predecessor plans zip 1 Should contain all files, please message me if there are any problems!
Comments
HI... im mohamed, im a student in emirates college dubai. im working on my final project. i wud like to do this uav as my project. can u please help me? im planning to built it from balsa. will u pls send me the CAD plans? it would be a great help. and please tell me the mods that i can do on this design. thanks! :)
Btw, any one who plans on building a predecessor for them self, there are a few mods i wasnt able to incorerate in the CAD files.
Also the nose is designed to be flat, so you can mount a pan/tilt camera set up!
I apologise about that, I have been working dillagently on my own UAV's for a school project.
After the school project, i was gona start building/selling UAVs to the community (Some time after March)
I still havnt got the code perfected yet (Thats the hard part), if u goto youtube and search beeler UAV part 5, you will see that when I turn off the stabilize mode.. i did it in a cross wind... and lost my proto-type! =[
Forchunately, (I just slaughtered that word..) the APM is rock solid and works perfectly still [very impressive!]
Try going to www.rcfoam.com thats where I get all my stuff, good prices too!
Thanks for the support, I cant wait to get this bird airborn!
"It took me 3 months to learn CAD"
Hi Anthony. I guess it's water over the dam now for you after having invested 3 months, but I have discovered that Google Sketchup is incredibly easy and intuitive. I am designing my own airframe now. I also thought the hard part was going to be learning CAD for this project. Sketchup results look embarrassingly professional for being so easy.
Good luck with your poject.
Paul