Just built a suprisingly good flying quad. Total price with battery but without receiver and APM was $127. It's very usable indoors and later I will add GPS mag, xbee and fpv tilt roll cam today.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=4204
$9 x 4
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=19033
$13 x 4
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=16631
$17
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=19595
$8
$127 total plus Rx and APM1 and AC 2.1
I haven't done extensive tuning but used ch6 in flight tuning on acro and stable and got it flying very good with these PI settings.
Will upload video later today.
Comments
Yea and I'm on the only guy in town with a RC woody :) :)
To get many extra parts, just by one or two extra frames. Also with some simple balsa and plywood sheets, I've made some repairs and reinforcements but yea it's not as crash resistant as a 3DR or most other frames :)
But it's fun as hell to fly and I don't mine pushing it to extremes that I will not do with my 3DR… yet. :)
Now it has a sony fpv cam and 5.8GHz 600mW transmitter for FPV. i get about 9 minutes of flight with that setup and 1800mAh.
Nice, I got a woody for your woody. :-0
Too bad they don't sell replacement parts. That's why I designed my 3D miniquad frame with interchangable, and replacable parts.
I got one of those frames for Christmas, for my first quad. I was thinking to add a little strength by adding a layer of fiberglass to each side of the built arms (not outside & inside, just outsides). After reading this information maybe a second layer in the area where the legs are joined to the arms. I'm totally new to quads, I also got a HK Quad Controller, just need 4 new motors/esc's and then I'll be able to see what all this quad fuss is all about.... Looks fun! Thanks for the details regarding this frame.
Yes I agree there are better and just as light frames such as CF but this was just a curiosity I wanted to kill and it resulted in a better flying craft than I thought. The motors are really nice and make a sweet whistle sound too :)
I know it will probably destroy the frame pretty bad if it's a high crash but at $9 you can keep extras and it's very quick to build.
I think wooden frames are great as long as you don't crash (but they are cheap enough to get a few), so not ideal for newcomers who would be better off with something that can withstand a few crashes
Also I used polyurethane on all the parts to strengthen up and weatherproof the wood. It is weak but once glued together, it is a very stiff frame.
Well it's definitely not crash proof and from a slightly hard landing i broke one of the arms but was easy to fix with some glue and strips of balsa. I went ahead and put a little strip on each arm at same places. You can't see in the picture because it was prior the crash but it's just near where the legs are. I cut about a 1" x 1/2" wide strip of thin balsa and put on each side of the legs just where the legs enter the center sandwitch part. It's definitely the weakest part of the frame but now it's very sturdy. I used sticky ass glue.
What surprised me about this compared to my 10" props and stock motors on my diydrones 3DR frame is that I would do things with this that I wouldn't think of with the 3DR like fly in the house :) Even though it's 75% the physical size, it's 1/3 of the weight. I get 12 minutes of flight on 1800mAh turnigy 30-40C battery.
It is so much smoother to fly than the heavier frames like the 3DR. I can launch and land from my hand also. Today I put xbee, gps, magneto soldered on and am adding small fpv camera using the roll channel from the IMU.