Week 5: Meet Frisbee!

The waiting game finally ended. My parts arrived. Motors, ESC’s, power distribution boards, and batteries dropped from the heavens onto my porch.

Finally, it was time for action.

Over this week, I’ve realized that building a drone from the ground-up was tough. Very tough. At times, it felt like I was kayaking up a creek without a paddle. But I persisted.

As I mentioned last week, I have to custom fabricate all of my parts. Using my handy dandy 3D printer, I can do this all in-house (or rather in my garage). I finished 3D printing the plates for The Sandwich (refer to last week’s blog for context) and they fit together nicely with brass spacers.

Then, I 3D modeled the motor mounts. With the naïveté of a toddler, I downloaded an internet file that looked compatible with my motor and arms. Making some small changes on TinkerCad (a simple-to use CAD software), I printed it out. Turns out, the print did not fit with ANY of my parts.

So, using a caliper, I meticulously measured all of the mounting points and the distance between them to completely redesign the motor mounts. It took a total of 5 iterations (and a lot of waster 3D printer filament) to reach the final design that fit with my brand new motors and carbon fiber arms.

Still, when I printed my final model, the mounts didn’t fit onto the carbon fiber arms. For some reason, the prints deformed the circular shape of the mount to an oval. So then I thought. And I thought and thought and thought. How in the world was I supposed to form the prints now? Well, 3D printers heat up filament in order to extrude them. So clearly, the plastic is reactive to high heat. With this knowledge, I heated some water to approximately 170 F and poured it into a bowl. Then, I dipped my deformed motor mounts into the water for 10 seconds. Pulling them out, they were soft to the touch. I was able to mold the mounts around the carbon fiber prop arms for a tight fit. Wow!

Then, it was soldering time. Now I’m no electrical engineer, so I meticulously studied how to solder under the wing of my father. Still, I’m messy, so after much struggle, I soldered my new 40 amp rated ESC’s to the power distribution board and mounted these parts across two floors on The Sandwich. I wired the ESC’s to the motors and the flight controller, and just like that, it looked like I was making progress!

Then, I had to mount my brand new, 18.5 Volt & 5000 mAh battery. So, I custom-designed and 3D printed a new mount for this behemoth of a battery. After mounting that, it looked like the drone was ready for programming.

But something was missing…

You see, I like to inject a little personality into my every creation. I like to have a personal connection with my inventions. So, I named my drone Frisbee and gave him a face.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Frisbee!! He’s a little shy but I’m sure you guys will get along well.