Foam Quad

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Hi, I'm currently in to a little project of making small quad's from foam. Currently I have made a basic X (30 cm) frame. This version is just to test the hardware (15g inrunner motors,3 inch props, ...). The first goal is to make it much smaller and add prop protection for indoor use. After that I would like to add features such as altitude holt with sonar/ir and a wifi/bluetooth reciever to control the quad by pc/tab/smartphone.

Project status, images, videos,... see the blog: http://foamcopter.blogspot.be/

 1) first test flight indoor with i86L board: difficult to fly, unable to find good pid's

 2) second test flight outdoor with nanowii board: flying much better even with std pid's

 3) currently changing frame, to be continued...

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Comments

  • Really like it!!

    The i86 board is just crap, not sure why they sold it in the first place, much less continue to sell it.  Other than to steal money :(

  • Hi Scott, looks really nice.

    I don't have a hot wire cutter so I just cut foam strips with a knive and glue them togheter. I don't really know the type of foam I use. It's a leftover from foam that is used to isolate buildings.

    I mounted the motors directly to the foam because I think that the foam isolates the vibrations better then carbon rods.

  • HI.  Yeah, I also really like working with foam (is it XPS foam you're using?). Here's a recent one I made, using CF rods for the arms, with XPS foam protector as one piece (cut out with hot-wire cutter). Really enjoy flying this around indoors. Have had some pretty major stacks and it has no damage:

    3692922240?profile=original

  • Fresh!

  • The arms of this quad are not reinforced. It's pure foam. The stiffness is good, because the total weight is only 215gr. On hard impact they will of course break. But it's foam, just apply some epoxy on a broken arm and after 5min you are good to go.

  • Hi Wipo

    I am finishing off a very similar build.

    300mm diameter including the prop protectors. 

    At the moment Feiyu tech quad controller stripped to the bone...I have a microwii on the way.

    I had been looking into wifi receiver but had not found anything suitable. Any tips appreciated.

    I am running out of parts to reduce weight on...it looks like yours doesn't have any reinforcement on the arms?

    I used a high density rubber and to take up the slack have run some CF square tube.

    Unfortunately I am offshore atm so it has been on hold for a few weeks...get home Friday.

  • Nice! What is the mass of the quad? Isn't it like this, that the mass reduction with a small quad is relatively smaller than in a bigger one? I see that you use blue foam, that is similar to depron, so this material should be efficient with a little larger model. What is your experience? Anyway very interesting! 

  • Nice idea, maybe a little more stiffness would help - carbon rod? I thought maybe it's possible to form a little quad frame with those "spray can PU  foam + carbon rod inside" from the hardwarestore (don't know the expression in english but I mean something like this: http://www.sl-schrauben.de/Chemie/SOUDAL_PU-Schaum_Soudafoam_Comfor...). Just an idea.

  • foam quad .... very unique

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