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Drone 250
Drone 250
Drone 250
This is a quick and easy beginners guide to building a complete FPV quadcopter. In this
guide we use the Silver Blade #37 as this is a nice piece of kit to get started with as it
comes with all the screws and accessories you need for the frame build itself. We’re
using this specific frame as an example, but all the techniques and steps outlined in this
guide can be applied to almost all other mini racing FPV quadcopters (they all have a
frame, four arms, four ESCs and four motors after all).
What We Used
The DroneBuildr tool kit - before you start, it’s a good idea to have all the tools
you will need to complete the build; this is a great little kit that has all the tools
needed (minus a soldering iron).
The Silver Blade #37 frame kit - as mentioned above, this is a great little kit that
has all screws etc. for the frame build.
The Mini Quadcopter Motor/ESC combo pack - which includes four MT2204
motors and four 12A ESC’s designed for use on mini quadcopters.
Flip32+ Flight controller - this is the ‘brain’ of your quadcopter. It controls all the
components of your quad and we chose the Flip32+ as this is an easy to operate,
quality flight controller. It has extra sensors like a pressure sensor and compass
which improves performance and makes the quad easier to fly.
5030 plastic propeller pack - these are suitable propellers for the motors in the
Motor/ESC pack used.
TATTU 1800mAh LiPo Battery Pack - we used this battery as it is from a high-
quality manufacturer (Tattu - one of the market leaders in batteries) and it is a
perfect mini FPV racing quadcopter battery.
EMAX Sony 811 700TVL CCD Video Camera - this is your standard FPV
camera but with a fairly high resolution (700TVL).
FT951 5.8GHz 22Ch 25mW mini Video Transmitter - this is the device thats
transmits the video signal down to your monitor/goggles and this is a great choice
for an FPV quad as it’s small and lightweight.
The R9D RadioLink radio receiver - Unmanned Tech will soon be stocking these
receivers. This is the device that receives the signal from the radio transmitter that
tells the quad what to do - it’s quite essential to include this!
A flight controller to receiver cable bundle - this is the cable that connects the
radio receiver to the flight controller.
10cm long male XT60 wire - you need to solder this onto the power distribution
board (which is in-built into the Silver Blade frame that we use here) in order to
power the whole system.
A bunch of accessories are also needed to complete this build and to make things
tidy. For example, you’ll need a 20cm Velcro strap to secure the battery (we also
used a bit of normal velcro ), some zip-ties to secure the ESCs and we also used
some black electrical tape for tidying. You will also need access to a soldering iron
(and some solder) and some heat-shrink.
So that’s all the kit we used on this specific build and this can, of course, be applied to
various other frames and variations on the kit can be used.
So let’s get to the build. Firstly, you need to get your frame up and running to some
degree. The Silver Blade #37 used here has a bottom plate, the integrated PCB board
and the arms and so we construct these first. The arms are wedged between the bottom
plate and the PCB board as shown here and you secure them with the screws and nuts
provided in the box. We then have the base on which we can begin to attached the ESCs
and motors. There is no need to attach the red aluminium standoffs and the upper plate
just yet.
We first attach the ESCs to the motors. Now, for every quadcopter, you have two
counter-clockwise motors and two clockwise motors. You will have to look at the
manual for your flight controller to find out where each motor should go, and since we
used the Flip 32+ here, we follow the instructions given in the Flip32+ guide . There is
also a very precise order to which ESC cable connects with which motor cable,
depending on the orientation of the motor in question. You can see a detailed guide on
how to do this in the ESC to motor connection guide . You then solder the cables
together (not forgetting heat-shrink) to the appropriate length (please see the soldering
guide for help). When cutting the cables down to size, please be careful not to cut all
the way down to the ends as this will inhibit the soldering process. It does not matter if
you have some excess cable, as this can be tidied up later.
We now have all the ESCs connected to the motors (correctly let’s hope) and we can
now solder the ESC power cables onto the in-built PDB. Again, make sure to cut the
cables down to the right length before soldering (see please the soldering guide for a
detailed description on how to do this). Please also pay special attention to which pad
you solder which cable to i.e. red = positive and black = negative … this is very
important.
So we have all the ESCs soldered onto the board and connected to the motors. Now we
attach the motors to the end of the quadcopter arms with the screws provided in the
have can therefore be tucked under the ESCs, and the ESCs can then be secured with
zip-tie.
Right, so we have things moving on somewhat. At this stage, it would be a good idea to
also solder the male XT60 10cm wire onto the PDB of your quadcopter (this is to
connect to the battery). Please note that we used this cable (with this connector) as we
are going to be using the Tattu 1800mAh LiPo battery which has a female XT60
connector on it. We therefore need a male XT60 connector for obvious reasons. I.e.
what I’m trying to say here is please check which connector your battery comes with
and what power cable you’re soldering onto your board. This power cable should be
soldered onto one of the pairs of positive and negative pads on the PDB. The battery
connector (the male XT60 wire) can be seen in the right of the pictures below. It is also
a good idea to add some electrical tape onto the soldering joints to ensure against short-
circuiting the system, but also to make the whole quadcopter look neater. We also
wrapped the servo cables on the ESCs in black tape to tidy them up.
Flight Controller Installation##
So now we move on to installing the flight controller onto the frame. Now, all flight
controllers have an orientation and so it is important that you secure it to your frame
facing the correct way (this saves a lot of a hassle later). Specifically for the Flip32+
board that we used here, the USB port is the back of the board and the opposite side is
subsequently the forward facing side. You therefore have to place the flight controller
so that the forward facing side is pointing in the same direction as the front of the
quadcopter (for the Silver Blade #37 there is no specific ‘front’ so you can choose).
We secured the Flip32+ here with 3M mounting foam to the middle of the quadcopter
(facing the correct way) and then we proceeded to plugging in the ESCs. We use the
servo cables to plug the ESCs in (the black, red and white cable) and these plug into
the output pins of the flight controller. This is because the flight controller outputs
information to the ESCs to control the speed of the motor. According to which flight
controller you’re using, each motor is numbered 1 to 4 in a specific order (as mentioned
above). You need to plug the ESC connected to motor 1 into the output pin labeled 1 on
the flight controller, the ESC connected to motor 2 into the pin labeled 2 etc. You also
need to plug the servo cables into the pins in the correct orientation. The three coloured
wires in the cable (black, red and white) correspond to ground, voltage and signal wires
respectively. You therefore need to ensure that the ground wires are connected to the
ground pins, the voltage wires are connected to the voltage pins and the signal wires are
connected to the signal pins. You can see this demonstrated in the pictures above. Most
flight controllers will have the pins labeled with which pin is ground, which pin is
voltage and which pin is signal. For example, in our Flip32+ guide , you can see that
the pins are labeled with G, V and 6 (the 6 is for motor 6 but this is the signal pin).
At this point I then attached the mobius mount (that was supplied in the frame kit). This
is an optional addition for any FPV quad that allows the user to add a second camera
onto their frame for picture and video taking (when the original camera is solely for
goggle/headset use). This is simply done with rubber vibration dampening balls (and
locks) and you then have a platform for your second camera (usually a GoPro). You can
then slot the landing legs onto your frame (this can be done at any stage).
We then install the TATTU 1800mAh LiPo Battery Pack onto our frame. There is no
set place on any frame for the battery to go and so this is free for you to choose to best
suit your arrangement. In this build, we positioned the battery at the back of the top
plate, as this was the logical place. Now, it is fairly essential for the battery to be pretty
secure on your quad, and so we secured it with both sticky velcro , and a velcro strap .
On top of this, we also secured the velcro on the quad with zip-ties, as we know the
velcro can easily become unattached when taking the battery off. Please note in the
picture below that the balance lead connector of the battery was positioned close to the
connector on the FPV system so that it could easily be plugged in. In the pictures below
you will also notice that we have added the propellers to the motors. As mentioned
above, you have clockwise rotating motors and counter-clockwise rotating motors and
so the correct propellers needs to be attached to the correct motor at this stage. You will
need to consult the manual of your flight controller for the motor orientation, which will
tell you which propeller to put on which motor.
In Conclusion…
And there we have it; a complete racing FPV quadcopter build. We have just gone
through the physical build of this quadcopter and in order for you to get your quad in
the air, you will need to setup and configure your flight controller. For this, you will
need the manual of your flight controller. Please remember that we used
the Flip32+ here which is a great example of a suitable flight controller for these
purposes and is relatively simple to setup and get going.
Thank you for reading and I hope this was helpful. Please do not hesitate to leave
comments/questions at the bottom of the page and I will get back to you on these as
soon as I can.
P.S. anything you can tell me to improve this guide would be much appreciated.
Thanks!