Super Light Drone

  

Things You Need

Prices can differ but you can find everything needed at Ebay. I will not provide with URLs as they change over time. Look for Hubsan h107c, except for the motors that must be for h107L. If you don´t already have a transmitter it´s probably more cheap to buy a whole quadrocopter with it included and take the parts from that.

Materials

• 3D printed chassis and battery clip: Files downloaded from Here
• 1x Radio transmitter: Hubsan H107C-19 4-Channel 2.4GHz [$24]
• 1x Radio receiver+flight control: Hubsan H107-A34 [$19]
• 4x Motors: Hubsan 7x20mm (2x CW, 2x CCW) for H107L [$7]
• 4x LED: Hubsan H107L & H107C LED (2x Red, 2x Blue, 3mm diameter) [$6]
• 4x Propellers: Hubsan H107-A02-PRO (2x TypeA, 2x TypeB) [$2]
• 1x Battery: HUBSAN HS-H107-A24 3.7V 380mAh Li-Po Battery [$9]
• 1x Charger: Hubsan 3.7V Usb Charger [$2]
• 2x screws: Hubsan Part H107-A07 Screw set [$2]

Total cost (without transmitter): $47

Equipment

• 3D printer (I used a Wanhao Duplicator 4x, similar to Makerbot)
• Soldering iron
• Screwdriver
• 1mm drill.

Time to Print

 

For the print I used a Wanhao Duplicator 4x printer. It´s similar to makerbot. For filament material i choose PLA because it´s easiest to use for beginners. If you want more rugged construction you better choose a different material. For slicing software I use Simplify3D, very easy to use and creates very good prints. It cost a bit of money but it´s worth it in the end. I manually defined the support structure for example and you find that in the images.

You can find all settings in my images but here is the most important ones for the body:

• Filament: PLA
• Nozzle width: 0.4mm
• Extrusion width: 0.46mm
• Layer height: 0.1mm
• Top solid layers: 5
• Bottom solid layers: 5
• Shells: 1
• Infill: 10% with 50% extrusion width @ 75 & -25 degrees
• Support infill: 30% and offset 0,25mm
• Temp extruder: 218C
• Temp bed: 60C

For a more robust body I recommend 100% infill and 2 shells. For the battery clip you can use same settings except extrusion width which I set to 0.42 to get a better fit on the body. For bed adhesion I used regular painters tape.

• Printing time: 2.5h
• Material cost: 0.25 dollars

Wiring & Assembly

 

The construction is very basic and I made it plus the soldering in just an hour (including taking photographs). The circuit board has a clever design where it´s almost impossible to connect wrong motor to wrong connections, but please look at my images to make sure you put the motors in correct place! There are two different type of motors and two different type of propellers, clockwise (CW) and counter clockwise (CCW).

Help Table:

• Propeller A = CW: Red=plus, Blue=minus
• Propeller B = CCW: White=plus, Black=minus
• Blue LED = Front: Red=plus, yellow=minus
• Red LED = Rear: Red=plus, yellow=minus

Construction:

1. Place the circuit board in the chassis
   1. Make sure the holes in the circuit boards is on top of the two fix
   2. Drill two small 1mm holes in the chassis using the circuit board as reference
   3. Use two small screws to fixate the board
2. Place the LED´s first in the small holes pointing to the ground (if you want to fly high)
   1. Make sure Blue LED´s are in the front and red led´s in the rear end
   2. The circuit board power cable indicates rear end of quadcopter
   3. Put the LED cables through both slits so it will go beneath the motor
   4. Use a small tool to bend the cable correctly beneath the motor before you place the motors
3. Place the motors and make sure the cable fits into small slit beneath the motor together with LED cable
4. You can fix the cable in the long slits under the arms later using a bit of glue

Soldering:

1. Do NOT cut the cables, they already have correct length
2. Set soldering iron to 180C (too high temp can damage the circuits)
3. Use the help table above to get polarization right
   1. All LED and motor connections are closest to the correct LEDs and motors
4. Heat each connection just a few seconds, if you miss let it cool and try again to avoid damages.
5. Fixate all cables with small bits of glue

You can now place the battery beneath the chassis using the clip and you are ready for a flight!
Place the quadcopter on flat surface and calibrate the gyro from the controller by holding throttle in it´s lower right position and switching fast right pad left/right/left/right a couple of times until you hear a sound and the LED´s flashes one time.