Building my own design from an idea to reality.
The first frame I bought from a UK store I snapped an arm when my quad did a death roll and fell from the air… caused by playing with Min_Throttle and having it set too low. (Lessoned learnt).
So I went back to the same store and the frame was out of stock. In the end I got bored waiting for the frame to come back into stock and not being able to fly and thought.
What if I designed by own?
I would get what I want and always be able to get parts.
I got ideas from different frames I found online and planned how I wanted it, with mounting options where I wanted them.
How hard could it be?
After spending a number of weeks working on a design.
I had a prototype ready and approached unmanned tech and they produced my frame for me.
Custom 3D printed FPV, Antenna and HD Camera mounts.
I’m still flying this prototype today. It has one design flaw with the motor mounts which I’ve worked around with this build but corrected in the updated design.
So my build:
- Frame: DoomedFPV v2 - Produced by Unmmanned Tech
- Old Motors: RCX 2206 2400kv (I had 5 out of 6 motors fail on me)
- New Motors: Emax LS 2207 2400kv (Sent from Unmanned Tech for review)
- ESCs: Chaos 30amp - Unmmanned Tech
- FC: Matek F405-OSD
- PB: Matek FCHUB-6S
- Rx: Frsky XSR
- FPV Tx: TBS Unify PRO 5G8 HV
- FPV Antenna: Pagoda-2 Omnidirectional Antenna - Unmmanned Tech
- FPV Cam: RunCam Swift 2
- HD Cam: RunCam 3
Dry fitting the standoffs, checking that all the mounting holes are where they should be and line up correctly.
Dry fitting the 3D printed parts some of the mount holes on the 3D parts needed widening before they would fit some of the hardware.
Starting to fit the hardware on to the frame and on to the 3D mounts.
Everything is now fitted.
All the hardware has been tested and build cleaned up.
The finished build.
Just missing the HD Camera mounts.
By this point in the build I’ve noticed things I want to change and I’ve been back to the design and changed them already.
In this image you can see where I made the error in the motors mounts on motors 4 and 1.
Since I got my own 3D printer I’ve redesigned all the 3D parts and printed my own now.
I’ve printed new HD Camera Mount, FPV Camera Mount and changed the Antenna mounts.
Having a 3D printer has helped me to get better at design and improve the frame design at the same time.
It took 3 or 4 redesigns of the HD Camera mount before I settled on one.
I tried different mounting options and found this one to be the cleanest to print.
The front FPV Camera mount design was updated to include larger mounting holes for the screws and the stand offs.
The rear antenna mounting went through a couple or resigns and reprints to get the SMA holes the correct size in in the right position where we was still enough material so the mount wasn’t weak around the SMA adapter.
The Finished design.
This project has taken me months to get this far and its still not finished.
I’m going to be testing the finished frame design soon.
Its been a learning experience from the start.
Working out how to use the design software as well as creating the frame.
I could have just brought a frame and been done with it. but where is the fun in that.
Next projects:
Motor review of the EMax LS 2207 2400kv for UnmannedTech (Insert link when its finished).
Worded review
Power station (Lipo charging station)
3" frame with Pod (I’ve not done a pod before)
