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Folding Quadcopter for the holidays

Posted by Murray Spoelstra on December 20, 2012 at 7:23am

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Not much space if you're going on holiday with the family in a Renault Clio. This design fits into a 52cm toolbox with transmitter and all accessories.

Just thought I'll share my crash resistant design that has evolved through many drops and repairs. On impact it is now usually just a matter of replacing a rivet or a prop. The electronics and battery can quickly be removed for installation on another airframe.

The props are 15" RC timers and as shown I get about 23min flight time with a slightly damaged 5000mAh 4cell Lipo at 1500m above sea level, 25 deg C.

The difference in spacing between front and rear props doesn't have a noticable effect on stability and it flies waypoints very well.

I'll post basic plans if anyone is interested or if you want an airframe let me know.

Update: Plans for the airframe

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Comments

  • Hennis de Klerk December 21, 2012 at 5:09am

    Cool looking props!

  • Moderator
    Ruwan December 20, 2012 at 8:51am

    Nope. I didn't. But, I see it now, I think you might have uploaded it again. 

  • Murray Spoelstra December 20, 2012 at 7:19am

    Thanks Ruwan, did you also remove the folded picture? I don't see it anymore.

  • Moderator
    Ruwan December 20, 2012 at 6:43am

    Nice airframe Murray. I've uploaded plans to the original post so we won't lose them if third party site goes offline. Thanks for sharing. 

    - Ruwan

  • Andrea Gavagnin December 20, 2012 at 3:56am
    to fix the arms of aluminum I only narrow very well the screws the timber flexes but tightly enough to keep the arms in position, and in case of fall I position them again and to fly away
  • Murray Spoelstra December 20, 2012 at 3:54am

    @Graham: No problems with stiffness as the fuselage part is sandwiched construction. Flies waypoints just as well or better than my small quad with 10" props. Direct control with RC is also without any problems. Loiters very well etc. The frame in the pictures was actually straightened with a 5lb hammer after I dropped it 30m onto tar at 60 km/h! (Prop came off in flight). I've also had drops from 70m+ onto rocks without bending the frame. (35mHz Antenna into props).

  • Murray Spoelstra December 20, 2012 at 3:37am

    Thanks for the tip Michal. The basic plans are at http://we.tl/4jKqSBcNAg

    The arms are Carbon 10mm. Got them from bow shop. Crossbow arrows. Bonded into 12.7mm square Aluminium tubes at ends. They fit perfectly.

    Andrea: Nice to see your photos. I was wondering why I haven't seen one like this before. How do you fix your arms into position?

  • Moderator
    Graham Dyer December 20, 2012 at 3:30am

    How's the stiffness? My first H-frame was not stiff enough and had some control issues.

  • Andrea Gavagnin December 20, 2012 at 2:35am
    is similar to the quadricopter that I just completed, even if yours is a higher quality construction

    [URL]http://imageshack.us/a/img7/6409/foto2js.jpg[/URL]
    [URL]http://imageshack.us/a/img823/227/foto1lx.jpg[/URL]

    propellers 10 "
    weight 1100g
    autonomy of 15 minutes
  • Michal December 20, 2012 at 2:08am

    It is very interesting project. I have a bigger holiday car (Hymer b544) but my four persons family doesnt leave me much space - so this project would fit my needs too :)

    Best thing you can do to post files is to transfer to some space hosting company (wetransfer.com for instance) and post here a link to uploaded files.

    Would you please tell me more about the arms you used? Are they carbon? What diameter are they?

    Thank you

    Michal

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