This week all necessary parts for the QRM quadcopter arrived, and we test fitted them on the aluminum prototype frame. Everything fitted perfect, and we finalized the designs so that the frame could be machined out of carbon fiber.
Together with the parts ordered at Hobbyking we bought a couple of 100x300mm 1.5mm thick sheets of carbon fiber. We managed to nest all the parts on two of these sheets, reducing the waist material to a minimum. When machining carbon fiber the material that is chipped away are minuscule fibers that you really don't want to inhale. (not often anyway) The parts could be machined using a vacuum cleaner, but we chose to make a bath in which we can machine the carbon fiber under water. This was done purely as a dust collecting mechanism, and not as coolant.
As you can see above we tabbed the parts so that they wouldn't come lose while machining. Both sheets where machined on our home build CNC machine, with a 2mm spiral toothed solid carbide endmill, with a full-depth cut. Machining took about twenty minutes per sheet, and we recorded the whole process. The water got black almost instant, so the machining itself isn't viable. We fast-forwarded the movie, and cut out some parts. You can see the sheets being taken out of the bath at 1:40 and 3:00
After machining the parts, we started assembly. The video below is fast-forwarded, the real time was about one hour. The only thing left to do is to connect all the electronics, set up the control board and see if she flies!
The total ready to fly weight will be around 250 grams!
Larger images are available on:
Comments
That's a beautiful little frame. It looks like it's custom built for the hobby king KK board (maybe i have the name wrong) so it's missing all the extra bits that I would want to puton it like a sonar, gps, etc. Still, very pretty and great that you're open sourcing the design.
How much does a CNC machine like that cost? I can make a lot of stuff with something like that!
How much would you charge for a full set of machined parts on your CNC?
We plan on releasing the CAD files of this quadcopter when the complete design is finalized. Everybody with CNC machining capabilities will be able to make a replica for themselves. I would be willing to machine a extra set for anyone interested. If interested, do contact me!
beautiful and simple. love it!
Are you selling the CNC parts as a kit?
The frame is about 60 grams with all the bolts and spacers. The distance between the motors is 216mm in X.
Looks very nice! What's the distance from motor to motor and total weight of assembled frame without any other components?
A small build log from the CNC > http://www.datmartens.com/nl/projecten/cnc-portaalfreesmachine.php (it's Dutch)
Whats wrong with the name? QRM stands for Quad Rotor Mini, and thats the name we gave to this project.
What a weird name, Are you being interfered with? Check out Q code if you don't understand why some of us are chuckling.
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