[Thanh] has spent some time flying quad-copters measuring 12” motor to motor, but wanted to build something smaller so that he could fly indoors. Instead of building just one, he actually constructed five different quad-copters, with motor to motor arm spans ranging from 10” to just 3”.
In his forum post, he highlights the construction process of his 10” copter, covering each step in great detail. While he breaks down his component lists into two categories based on motor to motor span, the one common item is the TI MSP430-based controller board. In particular, he used the eZ430-RF2500 development kit, which has the added benefit of a built-in 2.4 GHz wireless radio. His quad-copter uses a Wii Motion Plus gyro board to help keep it aloft, as well a handful of other components which should be pretty familiar to most of our readers.
It’s great to see the construction broken down in such detail, we imagine it will be a great resource for anyone else looking to build their own quad-copter.
Stick around to see a quick video demonstration of his mini quad-copter in action.
[Thanks, Panikos]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tLiZxjQrVg&w=470]
Must be 430 love day on hackaday! Very cool project! Can’t wait to try it.
Hmmm…. He seems to elude to code existing somewhere on google code, but the only thing I can find is the precompiled binary. Is anyone else seeing the source?
Found it. I’m a moron. Too busy clicking the shiny download button to notice the giant source one just three doors down.
@Matthias – “Elude” means to escape or evade. I’m not sure what word you’re thinking of here, but “elude” is definitely not it.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/elude
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/elude
@FredP @Matthias
I believe the word he was looking for was allude. :-)
al·lude/əˈlo͞od/Verb
1. Suggest or call attention to indirectly; hint at.
2. Mention without discussing at length.
cool but hardly “palm size”
VERY cool!
@zuul you didnt take a look at the link did you ?
http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/4/1/0/1/9/a3674948-172-Resize%20of%20IMG_5152.jpg?d=1292934652
Does anyone actually sell these small quad copters in kit form? I think it would be cool to play around with but I honestly have too many partial projects going on to take this on.
@ that1guy
Don’t we all… :(
another toy for the kids to play with
@aztraph If that is so, I’m still a kid…
@that1guy I am suprised that you can’t find kits either. I would think these things would fly off the shelves around Christmas time…
I think I remember seeing this last year on 43oh. A cool project, I just wish it was cheaper to build stuff like this.