Raptor V-Tail Quadcopter Drone

In my research, one of the features I came across that I really liked and wanted to incorporate into my design was the folding arms. Since I had to build my quadcopter in sections no larger than about 6 inches, this was an easy decision.

The 'shoulder and arm' design worked well for me. I did redo the shoulders so that the arc of travel was increased to a little over 90 degrees. I also rounded the edges of the arm.

Changes I would/will make to the arms would be an internal wire channel and to thin them out a bit to reduce interference with prop wash. I would/will also change the design of the shoulder to give it a more retro-futurism look.

I took a close look at my tail section and noticed it really resembled a vertebra. The main body connecting the tail section to the front arms followed this skeletal design form with the main connector piece between tail and 'hub' section being a plain, yet grooved extrusion of the terminating vertebral cross-section of the tail. 

The grooves were designed with two things in mind; form and cable routing. Small 2mm x 4mm cutouts were placed intermittently along the connector to accomodate zip ties to keep the cabling in place. I also included an internal channel with a dual purpose role in mind; this channel could be used as a conduit for wires if I decided all wiring should be internal, and also as possible location for a carbon fibre reinforcing rod. I thought this was such a good idea that I extended the concept of internal conduits for reinforcement out to the 'vertebral wings', sized to accomodate an aluminum arrow shaft.

After deciding on a vtail configuration, the design process began. My main tail section design considerations were strength and aesthetics. I started with a simple shape, the arms at 90 degrees from each other, a central support fin, and braces from the support fion to the arms.  Once the simple shape was more or less what I wanted, I extruded it to the extent of my print bed capacity, about 150mm. I then created a large cylinder shape (all design work was done in SketchUp) and laid it perpendicular to the extrusion and chopped it out. Details were created in much the same way.

The bolt pattern for the motor attachment points was lifted from another model and plunked into this one. Once I had the details and functional bits done, I had to size it to fit my print bed. I chopped the arms off, making them fit over a stub on the main tail piece. Printing the main tail section took about 14 hours. The arms were only about 2.5 hours.

Sometimes I get asked this. The primary reason I designed it with the v-tail is because it looks awesome. The increase in yaw-authority is also a benefit, but the cool factor trumps all. 

I looked all over the net for unique designs and found mostly standard designs. I designed this from scratch without knowing anything about design, multicopters, or 3d printing. Let's just say it was a learning experience.