The first go using some old helicopter skids worked OK, but there wasn't any room for adding a camera for FPV or aerial photography.
First, I tried piecing something together with some 1/2" PVC. It turned out a lot heavier than I had guessed, but seemed to be very durable and the slippery nature of the bottom seemed to make landings easier.
While the PVC flew well, it was just too heavy. If I'd add a camera and FPV camera the Quad could be carrying an extra 1000 grams around.
Next try, aluminum. Home Depot and Lowe's has a great selection of aluminum. One interesting product was a aluminum tile border product- basically an I-beam with cut outs. Seemed to be perfect for some landing gear.
Some plastic golf practice balls made perfect feet.
The aluminum gear turned out to be much lighter than PVC. The aluminum gear plus a Go-Pro and FPV gear should still be lighter than the PVC gear.
Original Helicopter Skids: 79 grams
PVC Landing Gear: 415 grams
Aluminum Gear: 244 grams
The new weight of the Turnigy Talon V2 quadcopter plus the aluminum gear and potato salad lid is now 1141 grams. (w/o battery)
hey man, I am following your build because i have alot of the same gear for the quad i am about to build. I am installing an APM2 board on mine as well..here is my build list from Hobby king
ReplyDeletehttp://imgur.com/ipIBL
I bought props from another site and batts from the US warehouse using 2700mah 40c 3s
what do you think? any thing you ran into that a rook might not see? I am obviously planning on heavy reliance on the APM2 board until i get better control... what kind of flight times are you getting?
So far I haven't been running to the end of the battery- but I have been getting flight times of 8+ minutes. I'm still learning how the fly the quads so usually my flights are cut short by running into a tree, the ground, or both.
DeleteThe biggest problem I've had is just to keep the motors aligned- I'm actually going to be selling my Talon V2 frame just because it's a pain to keep them pointed straight up. I haven't tried pinning the motor mounts to keep them straight- you might consider that when you assemble your frame.
Hopefully you have better luck!
I noticed that while I was building it... i just gorilla glued them in place to hold them straight...i have an APM2 board, so hopefully i can keep her steady with it. let me know if you get rid of it, I may take it off your hands if I can keep it out of trouble
ReplyDeleteI'll probably start moving my electronics to the new frame tonight- if you want the frame I'll sell it to you for a great price, including some extra stock landing gear and motor mounts. E-mail me and we can set something up.
DeleteWhat is your contact email? Mine is wootenelli@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteI think I am going to turn both into a hex build so I definitely would take it for a good price.
what is your next build frame? I am considering an aerial photography platform built on DIYdrons hex build.
I'm working on one of these right now for my next frame:
Deletehttp://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=24173
The key being that the arms can't twist out of alignment, there is no extra landing gear needed, and there is plenty of room for mounting electronics and camera equipment.