Tired of broken wood booms on your multirotor?

Liemavick

Member
Mentor
There is a easy solution, high density polyethylene! In other words tough and durable plastic booms. If you're not familiar with polyethylene plastic it is similar to what the plastic cutting boards are made from. Myself and a few of our forum friends have built multiple mutlirotors using these booms and have yet to break one. This material can be cut, sanded, and drilled like wood using standard wood cutting tools.

I am selling these pre-cut in 10" (25.5cm) lengths and approximately 1/2"w x 1/2"h. (12cm x 11.5cm). They are jet black in color and have a slight pebble texture on top and bottom. Here are a couple of photos...

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The price is $22 for a set of four. Free 3 day USPS shipping is included with your purchase. Paypal is my preferred payment method at this time. Contact me at liemavick@yahoo.com for any further info or to place an order. All orders will ship the next business day once payment is received
 
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CrashRecovery

I'm a care bear...Really?
Mentor
Ive got a set of his white ones and Ive crashed hard a few times and these have held up GREAT!!!!!!! Well worth the money he is asking for!!!!
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
Same here. Before my Bat Bone flew away to be with the aliens, I had one of these booms supporting my tilt motor. You WILL NOT break one of these. Just use zip ties to attach the motor for the break-away capability. Very nice material!
 

Craftydan

Hostage Taker of Quads
Staff member
Moderator
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Unbreakable you say? Really, how hard have these things been battered?

One of my less successful "landings":


The damage?

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Two landing skids cracked (pvc rings) and a few zipties. The booms? Nary a scratch! The frame? Plastic bends -- The shock didn't get to the frame either! All told that nasty hit cost me ~$0.30 for the PVC pipe slices and the zipties.

But do they last because I baby my V-tail?

Sometimes I take it easy on her:


I completely recommend these, especially if you're learning to fly multis. They are slightly heavier than an identical wood beam, but you're not gonna break one of these without cutting it in half first . . . and maybe not even then . . .

(disclaimer: I am a personal friend with Liemavick, and because of that, I got a free set of booms to torture test. I haven't, however taken it easy on the torture for my friend's sake. The use and abuse shown here isn't staged . . . I really do hit things fairly often :black_eyed:, and the booms really do shrug off the beating :cool:. I recommend these -- and I fly with these -- because I like a platform tougher than me!)
 

Craftydan

Hostage Taker of Quads
Staff member
Moderator
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DDS,

Haven't had wooden booms on this frame so I've got nothing to compare against for "increased". Since I'm usually flying for the flight, not the footage, I run my props pretty ragged -- as long as it's not attacking the control board, I don't swap out lightly nicked props.

How nicked? Well I'd probably change the right front prop on this one . . . after one more flight:


Seriously, on a clean setup it's very smooth. The camera still needs some shock mounting, but almost all multi's will. Again, haven't flown both plastic or wood on the same frame to say how much the wood helps, but Liemavick has some vids of progress that he's shot while workign out the kinks on his frames. Progressing though unbalanced and balanced power systems, and different mounts and I've seen him obliterate the jello.

It's impressive to see some of his improvements, but I'll let him show off what/how he did that, because I haven't really tried ;)
 
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Liemavick

Member
Mentor
DDS, here are a couple of raw videos with a GoPro2 with a cheap after market lens from Hong Kong. The first video is mounted on a V-quad, the second is on my V-hex. On the Vquad the GoPro is literally Velcro'd onto the deck with a couple rubber bands holding it in place, no foam or padding under the camera. The flight was more of a test of the design then the video quality. You should have 1080p available on both, and turn down the volume unless you like the sound of props and wind :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VDQemfSE_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhB1aLNw4hw
 

Liemavick

Member
Mentor
RoyBro, Currently 10" is what I have available. I looked around at many different designs people were building with wood booms and the majority didn't go past that length. I chose 10" so they could be cut down to size depending on ones needs as most use 7"-8" booms.
 

RoyBro

Senior Member
Mentor
I was thinking of using them on a knuckle quad, using 12 inch booms instead of 10 inch and rotor bones mounts.
 

Tritium

Amateur Extra Class K5TWM
Yea I usually run 12" booms on my Tri-Copter Designs so I would like to see some 12" as well. 12" could also be used on small H-Quads. Is this the "Marine Grade" HDPE?

Thurmond
 
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Liemavick

Member
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Howdy Thurmond, I hope life is treating your well. Yes it's the marine grade. As far as the 12" lengths, lets see what the future holds. Thanks for your input.

Brian
 

Tritium

Amateur Extra Class K5TWM
Hey Brian, Life is GREAT! I notice MSC has some Blue UHMW PE that is glass filled. That sounds totally bulletproof and unbreakable.

Thurmond