Build

Requirements

Basic skills with

• wire
• RC electronics
• soldering
• Theory (troubleshooting)

Tools:

• Soldering Iron
• Wire cutters
• screwdrivers
• xacto
• other basic tools

Parts:

• Flight Controller (FC) See the FC Hardware page for more details.
• ESCs
• Motors
• Propellers
• Frame
• LiPo Battery
• Power Distribution
• TX/RX

See Products for ones you can buy.

Note: not all of this is required depending on the multirotor (ex a prebuilt one).

Flight Controllers

Homemade(DIY)

These are made from the ground up with the sensors, processor, pins, PCB and other components.

Almost Ready to Run

Also called shields. For some the boards you only have to add the sensors you want, like the gyroscope and accelerometer, or for others you also have to add a processor board compatible with Arduino.

Ready to Run

Several vendors sell complete boards with several sensors like gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer or barometer. This boards are the more "ready to fly" you can get without using a soldering iron.

Size and Weight consideration

If you play outdoor, your flyng rc model must be resistant to the wind.

• the heavier the better - more momentum and inertia
• the smaller the better - less exposed surface to wind

Also, smaller props with faster (higher Kv) motors will be more wind resistant than bigger props.

Outdoor

A typical outdoor beginner multirotor has 8″ prop and 1100kv motor up to 11″ prop with the 900kv such as this quad. Both combinations can easily lift a payload up to 300g. You’ll have a 10-25 minutes flight time with a lipo battery of 2-3S and 2000-3300mAh depending of the payload.

Indoor

A typical indoor beginner multirotor build with 5" props up to 6"

Micro

A more advance builder may have an indoor quad with props less than 4".

Connections

Build your frame/buy it. Install the ESCs, Motors etc or open up your premade one. Place your FC onto the center mounts of the frame. and conenct it as so: http://multiwii.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/Doc/Diagrams/2%20Full%20connection%20diagram.png

Firmware

connect your FC to your computer and open the Arduino ide to change the file config.h to match your multirotor setup. Do the fine tuning and possibly any troubleshooting