I want to fly a plane in the sky, but it is very difficult to achieve. FPV quadcopter help me come true my dream. Flying things are cool, especially when they’re fast! Follow along as I build this 250 sized mini FPV racing quad.
H250 ZMR250 250mm Carbon Fiber Mini Quadcopter Multicopter Frame Kit
Tattu 1300mAh 4S 75C Lipo battery
Optional for FPV video
TS5828 5.8Ghz 600mW AV Wireless Transmitter
RC832 5.8G AV Receiver 32CH
10800TVL PCB Board Camera
Step 1: Build That Frame
Grab your frame parts and get assembling, there are a load off slightly different designs out there so I recommend following the instructions that came with your frame. If you didn’t get any like me then have a good guess. You’ll figure it out eventually!
Step 2: Mount That Motor
This steps pretty easy, just grab your motors and screw them to your frame with those tiny bolts that came with your motor. Drop a little bit of thread-lock onto the bolts if your worried about them vibrating out.
Step 3: Divide That Power
Okay so a quadcopter has 4 motors, which means we need 4 electronic speed controllers (ESCs) to power the motors, one for each motor. I’m using a power distribution board which splits the power from the battery to each ESC. You can just solder the wires together but using a board makes it much easier and usually more reliable. Make sure you get the polarity right or you’ll be sure to release the magic smoke. You’ll also want to solder some wires to connect to your battery. I’m using an XT-60 connector. I secured the board to the bottom with double sided foam tape. That stuffs really useful! Use zip ties to strap the ESCs to the arms and tidy the power wires.
Step 4: Connect That Motor
So we have the ESCs and the motors but there not connected together yet. Lets change that. Usually I use bullet connectors but as this is a racing quad we want it to be as light as possible so I chose to just solder the wires together. Your going to want to use heat-shrink on all the connections to prevent short circuits but don’t shrink it yet as you might need to swap some connections later on. Just solder each of the 3 wires from the ESC to a motor wire. Give the freshly soldered connection a tug to make sure its secure. Then slide the heat-shrink over the connection but remember to not shrink it yet.
Step 5: Stick on That Flight Controller
Theres loads of multi-rotor flight controllers out there. I’ve read some good things about the CC3D so I used it for this build. I think its great! Really simple to setup and fly’s really well. I mounted it with some more of the foam tape which works well, make sure the its pointing forward. Follow the wiring diagram to connect the ESCs to the CC3D, we’ll connect the receiver in the next step.
Step 6: Connect That Computer
https://wiki.openpilot.org/display/WIKI/OpenPilot ... which will enable you to configure the flight controller properly. Please note that the latest version that supports the CC3D board is 15.02.02 just scroll down a bit on the download page to find this version. Once you have it installed open it up and you’ll be welcomed with the main menu. See that big green button? Press that to setup your quad.
Step 7: FPV That Quad
Attach the board camera with zip ties so in the event of a crash it will have some room to move a little and hopefully won’t break. Solder power connectors from the power board on the bottom and attach the video transmitter to the top with a zip tie. Connect video signal from the camera and power from the board to the camera and transmitter. Finally tidy the cables so they aren’t in the way of the props.
