I started with the frame, a H.A.L. 585 mm kit from Turnigy, and as I had a bit of trouble with the "what goes where", I will try to give a write up of the process. This is just the result of my noobing around, as this was the first time I ever put together a frame like this, there might be much faster ways of doing it!
I found that I needed the following tools (had to buy them, as every wrench I had was about five sizes too big):
3 mm Allen wrench
2 mm Allen wrench
3 mm "normal" wrench
2 mm "normal" wrench
screwdriver for the self tapping screw (From the Bosch heads, the Nr 2. cross head did the trick for me)
small water level
The first step major assembly was the legs.
1. I slid the six feet joints on both "feet" or landing pads, then hammered the end seals on. I actually had to use a hammer, they need quite a bit of force to slide home. I left the T shaped feet joints off for the moment.
2. Then I screwed the bottom plate to the main support braces and screwed on the support rods.
3. I could slide the 195 mm carbon fibre rods into the support braces, and align the feet joints (the yellow, plastic nuts) on the landing pads with them, using the time-honored measuring technique of "this looks just about right". I tried to position the contact point between the landing pads and the legs equidistant from the center of the landing pads.
4. I put the T-shaped feet joints around the landing pads and the leg at the same time, and slid home the nuts on the landing pad part immediately, then played with them, until they aligned with the frame just right, and it didn't feel like there was any tension.
5. I stopped here, and took off the legs, so I could work better with the bottom plate, but when everything else was complete, I came back to this area, and screwed in the M2x10 hexagonal socket screws and tightened the M2 nuts on the other side of the main support braces, thus completing the feet. I also left the M3x3 set screws that are supposed to dig into the plastic joints until the whole frame was complete, because they looked like they were kinda permanent.
The next major assembly group was the arms.
Each arm has an end with holes, that goes to the center plate, and an end which will hold the motor mount plate. There is no decent way of aligning the motor mount plate to be completely horizontal, I feel that two small holes in the aluminium tubes would have been very helpful.
1. I first put the support compartment on the tube, with the pin in the support compartment clicking into the hole in the tube. Don't stress that tiny pin too much, it's only there to help, it can be broken!
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| The marked pin goes into the marked hole |
2. Now I had a vague idea about where the horizontal was, so I could put the motor mount plates on, without using the 6 mm side screws. Be careful, that the aluminium rod should not extend past the mouth of the mount plates. This is what it looks like when its too far :)
Important: check your motor against the plate now. Depending on the motor you use, you might want to turn the whole motor mount plate upside down, to take advantage of the sunken heads.
3. Using my small water level, I fiddled around with the assembly until I was satisfied, then first tightened the vertical screws, then put in the horizontal ones.
This finishes off the arms. When all the arms are ready, it is very important that you screw in the nylon screws into the top plate, it is very hard to do after screwing the entire thing together.
The top plate and the bottom plate can be aligned with each other in two different ways, I put them together wrong accidentally, and decided to keep it in the end, as it seemed to be perfectly fine and I could not find any functional difference between the two options.
The next big step is cobbling the top, the bottom and the arms together.
1. The orange support compartments click very neatly into the top plate, but driving the 30 mm screws through them can be a bitch. Some can be simply pushed through, but some have to be screwed through. I recommend an electric screwdriver for this, if you can mount the allen wrench in it somehow, I had to do it by hand and it took quite a bit of time. You can add the arms at the very last moment.
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| Half complete |
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| All the way in |
2. The lock nuts on the other end need to be tightened quite forcefully, as you cut a thread into the nylon part.
3. Next are the self tapping screws that eat into the aluminum arms
You are sort of done here. If you are wondering what to do with the snap pins, then here is the solution: if you put the UFO's lid on, then you can push the snap pins through the knobs, to keep the lid in place.
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| The quad's bottom |
This is it, the frame of the quadrocopter is done. The set screws need to be driven into the landing pads and the end of the arms and everything needs to be tightened once more.
Slightly worryingly, I was left with four unused 12 mm screws at the end, and I have no clue where they are supposed to go. They are not on the assembly picture, and they are not missing from anywhere.
