I scratch-built my first quad using Chad Kapper's "AnyCopter" hub design. I think it's a great concept, but for me, I think it needed some revisions to address a few (minor) problems I had with it. Here's a video I did showing how I made the AnyCopter hub:
Here's a couple pictures of the first version of my quad (I'm constantly tinkering and adjusting making modifications).
It flies great and is a lot of fun. But, like I said, for me there were some problems that I felt a redesign could address. I have not yet made and tested an actual hub yet, but hope to do that soon.
The big hole in the center of the bottom hub made mounting my flight controller a little difficult. I use the Flip 1.5 with the case. The case is bigger than the hole, but only the corners touch and there's not much surface area there to use the foam tape I wanted to use. I ended up covering the entire hole and surrounding area with the foam tape, but now the exposed sticky area covering that big hole has attracted a lot of dirt and grass and crud. In my redesign, the center of the bottom hub is solid for mounting a flight controller. To keep the same weight reduction from that original center hole, there are four "medium" holes but away from the center.
In the template, the center of the top hub is a "battery plate." I didn't use it and just attached velcro straps to the arm screws. Instead of cutting a hole to reduce weight, then adding it back with a battery plate, I added slits directly in the bottom hub to run velcro straps for a battery.
The template was very nice, but it didn't have cross-hairs to pinpoint the center of the holes. I bypassed this problem with the way I made my hub (using the template as a guide, but referencing the center point for actual hole locations instead of the printed template), but thought they might still be useful on the printed template.
On my AnyCopter build, my first set of booms started splitting at the screw holes. When I replaced the booms, I replaced the outer screw for each arm with zip ties. Now, in a crash, the zip ties break instead of the boom. With the arms being able to fold (when no zip tie is in the outer hole), I started wishing the arms could fold for carrying/travel without much fuss. So, I added an arc for the inside screw to slide through allowing the arms to fold. Hopefully I can keep this tight enough to not fold while in flight, but still be able to fold for transportation and storage.
My redesign loses a lot of the flexibility of the AnyCopter hub, but since this is dedicated to a quad, I'm OK with that. If I ever do another configuration, I'll make another frame for it anyway. But, I kept a few of the small screw holes and added more medium sized holes to help with wire management and weight reduction.
I've attached my first draft of the template. Hopefully this weekend I'll give it a test. I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions!
Here's a couple pictures of the first version of my quad (I'm constantly tinkering and adjusting making modifications).
It flies great and is a lot of fun. But, like I said, for me there were some problems that I felt a redesign could address. I have not yet made and tested an actual hub yet, but hope to do that soon.
The big hole in the center of the bottom hub made mounting my flight controller a little difficult. I use the Flip 1.5 with the case. The case is bigger than the hole, but only the corners touch and there's not much surface area there to use the foam tape I wanted to use. I ended up covering the entire hole and surrounding area with the foam tape, but now the exposed sticky area covering that big hole has attracted a lot of dirt and grass and crud. In my redesign, the center of the bottom hub is solid for mounting a flight controller. To keep the same weight reduction from that original center hole, there are four "medium" holes but away from the center.
In the template, the center of the top hub is a "battery plate." I didn't use it and just attached velcro straps to the arm screws. Instead of cutting a hole to reduce weight, then adding it back with a battery plate, I added slits directly in the bottom hub to run velcro straps for a battery.
The template was very nice, but it didn't have cross-hairs to pinpoint the center of the holes. I bypassed this problem with the way I made my hub (using the template as a guide, but referencing the center point for actual hole locations instead of the printed template), but thought they might still be useful on the printed template.
On my AnyCopter build, my first set of booms started splitting at the screw holes. When I replaced the booms, I replaced the outer screw for each arm with zip ties. Now, in a crash, the zip ties break instead of the boom. With the arms being able to fold (when no zip tie is in the outer hole), I started wishing the arms could fold for carrying/travel without much fuss. So, I added an arc for the inside screw to slide through allowing the arms to fold. Hopefully I can keep this tight enough to not fold while in flight, but still be able to fold for transportation and storage.
My redesign loses a lot of the flexibility of the AnyCopter hub, but since this is dedicated to a quad, I'm OK with that. If I ever do another configuration, I'll make another frame for it anyway. But, I kept a few of the small screw holes and added more medium sized holes to help with wire management and weight reduction.
I've attached my first draft of the template. Hopefully this weekend I'll give it a test. I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions!
