Item List For Building A Quadcopter

Here’s a list of all the parts (from amazon) you are going to need to build a quadcopter. I’ve listed only amazon prime sellers so if you don’t mind waiting you can save some $$ by looking around at related sellers/products, that’s a good idea anyway since parts come and go. It won’t take too much imagination to do any popular model of drone as the flight controllers support all of popular models, just add / re-arrange the motors for h6, x6, x8, etc…

Parts:

  1. Frame: Usmile F450 quadcopter frame. Check out the neighboring frame types and add more parts as necessary if that’s what you want.
  2. Motors: a2212 1000kv brushless motor + 30A esc combo – these are generic but they are powerful.
  3. Any 11.1v 20C LiPo battery. Any mAh will do but the higher the mAh, the longer it will fly. 20C is good and anything higher than 20 will just be better. I personally fly my x6 w 6400mAh.
  4. Micro Controller: kk2.x is a good, cheap start. ArduPilot is a step up.
  5. 6 channel Remote Controller: You don’t need a 6 chan but for ~$50 you can’t go wrong.
  6. Bullet Connectors: To make troubleshooting with the motors less painful
  7. Battery Lead Connector: Deans is a popular connector.
  8. Propellers: 2x 1045R CW and 2x 1045 CCW. Your flight controller will tell you which motors / props need to spin which way. I personally do white in front and red in back (head lights / tail lights).
  9. Heat Shrink Tubing: If the motor leads touch, you’ll fry the motor (electrical tap works too).
  10. (Optional) Low Voltage Alarm: Once the battery gets too low, electronics can get ruined

 

Optional:

A. Any drone legs should work fine.
B. A camera gimble if you plan to do photograpy.
C. Bluetooth / Telemetry / GPS or Adafruit breakouts

Notes:

  • Setup the frame with no top plate at first. Solder in LiPo lead wire and all four ESC’s.
  • Add top plate + microcontroller. Your ESC’s and motors should all have brushless connectors by now.
  • Plug the motor leads (typically red/white/black) into the controller, then plug in the batter. Walk through the setup to see which way the motors are suppose to spn.
  • Plug in the brass connectors from the ESC’s to the motors. If they are spinning the wrong way then merely swap two of the plugs to the ESC. Easy enough. Once you have it right then use the shrink wrap because the brass connectors CANNOT TOUCH. Do one motor at a time to avoid frying a motor.
  • Make sure you do the flight controller in Self Level / Auto Level mode. There are two settings, typically P gain and P limit. When P gain is too low it will want to flip over, too high and it will be wobbly. Limit refers to how responsive the drone is to your right joystick (nose / roll) so set it a 5 to start and move up by 5. Here’s a great article on P, I (and D) Gains In A Nutshell
  • Register your drone with the FAA! It’s only 5 bucks.

There are an excess of YouTube videos on all of this, that’s half of how I learned what I know. The rest was the good old college try / trial and error.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *