I finally have the quadrocopter approaching completion! I have the frame completed out of 3/4″ aluminum square tube and Lexan. Each motor is held on the frame with a clamp mechanism made from Lexan. Each propeller is mounted to it’s motor with a prop saver. The electronics are all mounted and have mostly been all soldered together. Each of the ESCs (electronic speed controllers) is getting power from a circle of 10 gauge wire in the center. The Arduino is mounted in the center on stand-offs. Each speed controller is connected to the Arduino through a custom made connector. The battery (2200mAh 20-25C LiPo) is mounted to the bottom with Velcro. The battery connects to the power distribution system through an XT60 connector. The Arduino will connect to power through the on-board power connector (right now it’s running off of USB power).
Here’s a picture:
Right now I really just have to work on the code to make it run. So far I have code that gets an attitude (angle) measurement from the IMU. I have PID code from another project so I just have to implement that into this project. After that I just have to tune the PID and it’ll be working! The code is really the interesting part of this project. I’ll post an in-depth post on exactly how my code works and how you can change it to make it work for you once its finished. Also, I’ll post all the code, links, design drawings, and anything else that went into building this.
In the meantime, here’s a video of all four motors powering up a bit from computer->Arduino control: http://www.flickr.com/photos/49325300@N07/5698514204/
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