#Fpv drone parts free#

In the end my PETG print had two pinprick holes which I fixed with superglue, but an alternative solution would be to paint/varnish the whole thing.

Over-extrude slightly (I used about 5%).

Print hotter (to ensure good bonding between layers).

Ensuring that the hull is watertight can be tricky with thin-wall prints, but there are a few things you can do to help The images above show how the slicer is used to make the hull hollow, by printing without any support or infill, and only two perimeter walls, we get a relatively lightweight and robust result. Note, the model is solid, so you can balance hull strength and weight by adjusting print settings. Making sure that your components are modular and re-usable is a huge benefit when experimenting and iterating towards a goal.

The boat is also designed with a flat rear, which is convenient for printing, and I made sure that none of the angles resulted in more than 45 degrees of overhang when printing This hull accepted the same “thrust pod” from the previous boat, so that I didn’t have to move any electronics around.

You can see similar shapes on some full-scale airboats. Back to the drawing board then, I designed a longer hull with a raised prow, to prevent it nose-diving. The main reason I chose an airboat in the first place was that it would be the least likely to get tangled and stuck, but capsizing is equally problematic and needs to be fixed. One of the biggest annoyances with FPV drones is having to put down your goggles and do the walk of shame when you can’t fly out of a crash, I can guarantee you, the swim of shame is worse! 😂 In the previous step we made some progress towards a working airboat but the short flat balsa hull was prone to flipping right on it’s face with any sudden stops. The steering however does work well, and the boat scoots along with impressive pace while it is upright. As soon as the nose or front corner catches the water it becomes a pivot point and the props lift the rear, causing a disastrous cartwheel that tests the waterproofing to it’s limit! The entire weight distribution of the boat is completely wrong, resulting in something that desperately wanted to flip on its face. You can see in the pictures below that I added a raised bow to (try) prevent nose-diving. Access to the FC for tuning was a nuisance though, since it had to be removed to access the USB port. The thrust pod is attached to the wood base with a few M2 screws. This proved to be a smart solution, and was used well past the Balsa stage. The next step was to create a self contained “thrust pod” which holds the flight controller, two motors, goober canopy and 1s battery, all in one handy little package that can be easily moved around between hulls. Since Balsa sucks up water like a sponge I gave it a good few coats of acrylic craft paint to seal it.

Mk1 proved to be a bit too dense, so I decided to go old-school and carve a basic hull out of a block of Balsa wood, which was rather satisfying and extremely easy to do with nothing more than a hand saw and sand paper. If you don't have a 3D printer (yet), you might want to take inspiration from my Mk 2 a few steps down, it would certainly be possible to improve on. You will find the files for my final design ( here), they should be easily printable on any decently calibrated printer, with any material, but more detail on that in its own step! If you have the drone parts you'll have the tools needed, but here they are:

Silicone Conformal Coating ( Electrolube FSC).

2x Brushless 1202 motors ( 8000kv Flow Motors).

1x Whoop-sized Flight Controller ( NewBeeDrone BeeBrainBL).

I will list roughly what you need below with my specific components in brackets. I have specifically designed this project to use the leftovers from dead micro drones, so use what you have.

#Fpv drone parts free#

Feel free to skip the first few steps if you just want to build the end result (it starts at step 5), or just enjoy the video summary below! Components Used This is a good time to mention that this whole project is ill-advised, water and electronics don’t mix, don’t try this at home (or do, but don't blame me when you fry something 😉)Īlthough I am rather pleased with my final iteration, I would like to take you through the process that got us there, since I think the fails are fun, and certainly great learning opportunities to see what makes an airboat sink or swim. Because we will only use two motors you can easily repurpose an FC with a damaged ESC (In my case a BeeBrainBL Flight Controller that someone accidentally crashed into water one too many times, which I found gloriously ironic). The goal of this project was to use up some extra parts and build something fun. Sometimes those parts accumulate back into a drone, but there are always a few leftovers…

If you are anything like me then you have an ever-growing collection of damaged drone parts.