How to Build a Drone

Before you start making this DIY drone, you need to know which components are needed to build it; if you want it to fly, of course.

Here is a basic list of the components you’ll need in order to build yourself a drone:

• The frame: there are two possibilities when it comes to a frame for your drone. You can make it yourself or buy it in an online store, and for a wide choice of high-quality frames, we suggest checking out our article about best drone frames. If you decide to build it yourself, the project is not that difficult, but you’ll need some engineering knowledge and knowledge of the materials you are going to use. For instance, you can use metal (something light), plastic, or even wood slats. If you opt for a wooden frame, you’ll need a wood board which is about 2.5 cm thick.
• Motors: For an ordinary quad, you will need 4 motors in total, but an octocopter requires eight motors to fly. The recommendation is to use brushless motors – they are lighter on the battery and, unless you are an engineer who completely understands how a motor works, these pieces should be bought from a store. You can also get more familiar with them by reading our article about drone motors.
• ESCs or electronic speed control: these are also essential pieces of your drone as they are in charge of delivering power to the motors. Again, their number depends on the number of arms your drone is going to have.
• Propellers: When looking for the propellers, you must find the ones that match the frame of your drone. Pay attention to materials – you won’t find wooden propellers, but you must make sure the ones you choose are a good fit.
• Connectors: You will need 3.5 mm connectors to weld the motors and ESCs, as well as 4.5 mm connectors for the power distribution board.
• The power distribution board – this board connects the electronic speed controls to the battery.
• Batteries: When purchasing the batteries for your drone, you need to consider the capacity of a battery and its type. The most used batteries for this purpose are Li-Po batteries and their power differs. To have a much better insight on this topic, we strongly suggest checking out our article about drone batteries.
• Battery monitor: This is not an elementary item, but the monitor is quite useful in warning you when the batteries are close to finishing. This way you don’t risk having the drone remain out of juice in the air, over a pond.
• Mounting pad: It reduces the vibrations, and thus improves the flight. This one is very useful especially if you are trying to take pictures or videos with your DIY drone.
• Controller- This device shares the power and commands the motors at the same time.
• RC receiver: Of course that, if you have a transmitter (which is usually with you), you’ll also have a receiver mounted on the drone.
• Micro SD Card
• Camera: If you want to take aerial photos and record the surroundings while flying your drone, you will need a camera. The best cameras are those that can take the quality 4K videos, but everyone will find one according to its needs. For the high-quality photos and videos, you’ll also need a gimbal for the camera.
• USB key: It is necessary to save the photos and videos.

These are the most important parts that every drone must contain in order to work and fly.

Aside from the above-mentioned parts, you will also need AWG silicone wires, a battery charger, Servo lead wire cables, zip ties, 3M command strips, thread locking compounds, etc. In addition to these components, you can also embed other accessories to your drone and make it more advanced.

11 Steps To Building a Quad from Scratch

There are different types of drones, but people find quadcopters to be more efficient as they are easy to fly. That’s why we focused our effort in finding out how to build a quadcopter with pieces you buy separately.

Step 1: Making the Frame

No matter what your drone is going to be, it must have a frame. So, the first task is to make a frame. For this purpose, you can use different materials, such as metal, plastic, or wood.

If you select wood for the frame, find a wood board that is longer than 60 cm and about 25-30 mm thick. Cut up this board in such a way to get two laths which are 60cm long and 30mm wide. These two lengths are required to make a structure of your future quad.

Crossing these two laths you’ll make the X frame. Also, you will need a wooden sheet in order to make and add a rectangular piece in the central part of this frame. Its size should be 6×15 cm, and about 2mm thick.

Of course, you can use other dimensions if you like, but these will get you a pretty nice quad. To connect these parts, you will need nails and glue. In case you decide to go with metal or plastic, the dimensions are similar but the way you connect the laths together is going to be different.

Step 2: Propellers, Electronic Speed Controllers, and Motors

The ESCs (Electronic Speed Controllers), the motors, and the propellers are among the most important elements of a functional drone. So, you should get these components from an authorized store. They must be in accordance with the size of your drone, so bare this in mind when buying them.

When looking for the motors (or rotors), you should know that multi-rotor drones produce greater speed and ensure a stable flight, as each rotor works with other’s thrust points. For example, check out these rotors:

For the propellers, we suggest you buy the metal 9-inch props you can find at a very affordable price on the market. These are durable and won’t bend so easily if the drone hits something during flight. However, if you want better performance, it would be better to get carbon props.

3: Assemble the Motors

The next thing you need to do is drill the holes in the frame for the motors, according to the distance between the screws holes on the motors. It would be good to make another hole that will allow the clip and shaft the motor to move freely.

4. After mounting the motors, you also have to mount the speed controllers. How will you do this? It is recommended to connect the speed controllers on the bottom side of the frame due to several reasons.

5: Add the Landing Gear

This gear is an important part when landing your UAV because it significantly reduces the shock when the drone lands on a solid ground. It can be made in different ways, but you should be creative and make it in your own and unique way.

 Flight Controller

Every flying drone must have a control system. This electronic system allows a drone to be stable in the air while flying and processes all the shifts and changes in direction and wind. There are two options when it comes to this step.

VFirst, and the easier option, is to buy a ready-to-use controller. Second, you can make it yourself. For this work, you can use one of the following source flight controller projects:

Step 7: Choosing a Right RC Tx-Rx (Wireless Remote Control System)

In addition to this system, you’ll also need a few channels for yaw, pitch, throttle, and roll, as well as the additional channels if you want to mount a camera control to your drone.

 Mount the Flight Controller

Once you choose the particular flight controller, you need to mount it. For instance, you can place it on the top of the frame in a certain direction, but you need to make sure that all the components are fixed well before calibrating your drone. For this purpose, you can also use the aforementioned zip tie

 8.Connect the Open Pilot to Your Drone

The next thing you have to do is to configure and connect the flight controller to the electronic speed controllers.

Also, you have to connect it to the remote control. In order to see how to do this step, you will need to find an appropriate tutorial video on the web for the particular flight controller you have previously mounted.

Step 10: Check Out and Test Your Drone

Before you finally use your drone, you must be sure that everything works well. Therefore, you have to check out all the functions before the first flight. You can test the sensors as well as other components of your drone using the special OpenPilot GCS.