Quadcopter from scratch

Description

I've always wanted to build a vehicle that could fly. After building a few wheeled robots and coming across the Hackaday post about Execuc's quadcopter I decided to finally build a multirotor this summer. I went with a micro-quad since I was on a tight budget and wanted to build everything from scratch.....including the flight controller and the wireless comm.

Details

Four coreless motors along with their propellers keep the quadcopter hovering above ground. The frame for the quadcopter is a perfboard and Lego pieces used for the arms and motor mounts. The hardware consists of an Arduino Pro Mini, MPU6050 and NRF24L01+ modules on the flight controller board. The motors are controlled by the Arduino PWM signals via four Si2302 mosfets. The propellers used are standard Hubsan propellers. The flight controller also has circuit for low battery voltage detection. The flight controller board is powered by a 3.7V 500 mah 50C LiPo. (A bit under spec :D )

On the transmitter side I've used another Arduino Pro Mini, an NRF24L01+ module and a few voltage regulators. Two joysticks are used to input throttle and ypr values.

For now I'm having a bit of a problem with one of the mosfets as it isn't turning off completely. This problem will be rectified in a further update.

Components

2 × Arduino Pro Mini

4 × Si2302 Mosfets

4 × Coreless Motors

2 × Nrf24l01+ Modules WirelessComm

2 × Joysticks Throttle and ypr input

Discussions

VJ Technicals wrote 05/02/2017 at 09:30

could u just provide me with the code

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Oumeyma wrote 04/26/2017 at 13:52

Hi Sidhrath , i am trying to build the same Quadcopter using MPU6050 , but can i know how did u attached mpu6050 with coreless motors using arduino ! would you help me with the script ! i would be pleased to answer me and help me with the stability of the Quadcopter ! Here's my E-mail Oumeyma@yahoo.com, Thanks

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ammar wrote 04/11/2017 at 17:25

hi Sidharth , i m trying to build my own one using arduino101 (with accelerometer and gyroscope built-in), and similar motors 3.7 v , my problem is that i haven't found a motor driver for my project . can you help me to build it ?

NOTE : output from arduino101 is 5v and the motors are less than it .

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EngineerAllen wrote 02/24/2017 at 17:40

how much were your motors/props?

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harsh671997.prajapati wrote 12/24/2016 at 08:24

Hey can you please help me to build this quadcopter for my own

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RX HMP wrote 10/03/2016 at 20:31

Hi.

Im looking at similar thing for brushless. Can you tel me what range you got with these transmitters and if they are suitable to connect to 6ch receivers were use to lioe frskys, soektrums ect? Could these be a good replacement to bypass receiver locks shall I say, for just 150m park flyers?

You tried this with gps yet? I havnt decided what module to get, Ive got apm2.6 on way Im use gps on everything though. Safety.

Please reply as im doing similar projects and would love to discuss things.

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silvio biasiol wrote 04/14/2016 at 21:12

Very nice quad! Can I ask you what are your considerations for choosing the MPU6050? I'm doing an autonomous sailboat but I'm struggling to choose the right IMU and I really need some suggestions :D https://hackaday.io/project/10652-green-powered-sailboat

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otunbacarter wrote 03/05/2016 at 12:33

Nice work.. But can please go a little deep into your design and design parameters for starters

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veerendra wrote 02/29/2016 at 08:34

Hi siddarth...! Where you bought 3.7v 50c 500mah battery? If possible could you please post the link

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Sidharth wrote 03/02/2016 at 17:00

Hey, I got the battery from Banggood. Here's the link : http://www.banggood.com/3_7V-500mAh-Battery-For-Hubsan-X4-H107-H107L-H107C-H107D-V252-JDX385-p-88012.html

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Ab Cd wrote 07/09/2015 at 11:40

That cheap MPU6050 works well? I have two unused at home, so maybe I will try them on my 450 size guad. Thanks for inspiration.

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Sidharth wrote 07/09/2015 at 14:30

Yup it does but mine takes some time to calibrate (still don't know why!). For bigger quads you may need a magnometer also so maybe a 9 DOF IMU board may be better for that.

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adnan.saood2061998 wrote 06/22/2016 at 09:55

Actually the MPU6050 takes time to calibrate if it is not 100% stable, no vibrations allowed.

and it is very important to face it up during the calibration process
I had this problem for weeks.

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hebel23 wrote 07/09/2015 at 06:05

Nice work man! Just curious, whats about the flight control? Did you developed the algorithms by yourself or did you use a open source project like aeroquad or so?

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Sidharth wrote 07/09/2015 at 14:25

Thank you! I haven't done the flight control from scratch. I'm going through some open source code to base the PID loops and Kalman filter on. The thing is most open source quads dont use the Nrf modules for the comm (except the Crazyflie I think.) so it'll have to be tweaked. Right now all I've done is put some PID loops for ypr so the quad drops to the ground pretty quickly :D

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adnan.saood2061998 wrote 06/22/2016 at 09:56

wouldyou please put the link of your open source FC?

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Stefan-Xp wrote 07/08/2015 at 21:31

Great project :) Does it fly?

Would have loved to see and read about a 3 phase BLDC/ESC ;-)

As always I'm greedy for details ;)

Best regards!

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Sidharth wrote 07/09/2015 at 14:15

Thanks :)

Right now all I've done is put simple PID loops for ypr so its very unstable and crashes pretty fast (I've posted a short test video) . The hardware part of the project is done now. I have some pictures from when I started the build so I will definitely find them and post them.

I'm not using BLDC motors and ESCs though. These are just coreless dc motors (two terminals) that are controlled by PWM from the uC via mosfets.

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The Big One wrote 07/07/2015 at 19:58

Very nice work! I have previously tried to make a quad copter, but it was way too large, and while it did eventually take off a couple times, it was very unstable. I ended up scrapping the project due to the danger (a multi-Kg piece of flying death can cause a lot of damage if it falls on someone!) Your small version looks much nicer...

Where did you source your small motors / props from?

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Sidharth wrote 07/08/2015 at 05:54

Thank you! That was one of the reasons to build a micro quad first...they are able to fly indoors as well as outdoors. Also I've seen many people recommend a brushed micro quad as a beginner multirotor since they handle crashes better.

The motors I bought online from here : http://hacktronics.co.in/home/448-mini-coreless-motor-for-rc-aeroplane-helicopter.html but I'm not sure if they ship internationally.

Banggood has spare hubsan motors and propellers. That is where I bought the propellers and battery from.

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The Big One wrote 07/08/2015 at 16:47

Great, thanks for the info!

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K.C. Lee wrote 07/07/2015 at 13:36

Might want to consider using FR4 protoboards instead of the phenolic pcb as they are less prone to breakage.

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Sidharth wrote 07/07/2015 at 14:00

That was my first choice but I just had 5cm sq individual pieces at hand and my local hobby shop only had these perfboards stocked. I plan to shift to print my own pcb eventually. Thanks for your feedback.

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Jithin wrote 07/07/2015 at 18:12

Nice work

check out pcbpower.com for affordable prototyping in India. Build quality is quite excellent on the 4-layer boards I've been getting made from them. Bulk pricing changes drastically ( single boards costing around Rs 1500 may cost around Rs 35 if you order a hundred . You can compare the prices on the website itself. ) They also cut odd shapes such as the one you might need here.

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Sidharth wrote 07/08/2015 at 06:06

Thanks for the link, I will check them out. The custom shaped pcb might be useful too. I planned to just have small notches on the main board and make the arms out of perf board too but they broke too easily.

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Quadcopter from scratch

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