in this video we're making a really
small Arduino-based FPV drone you control through its own Arduino
transmitter harnessing the power of DIY drone building for the in-depth learning
experience and thrilling first-person view racing from the comfort of your
home make your own DIY miniature camera drone from either popsicle sticks or 3D
print with my own design that utilizes common Arduino compatible modules that
you can purchase on a low budget but here's the big question that's buzzing
in the air will it actually fly the first step in finding out is to make it
so join me on this elaborate journey by taking a look at the parts we need which
include a set of brushed coess motors with propellers parts to make a custom
motor driver board modules for the flight controller and a receiver a 3 G
fpv camera a lipo cell with connectors parts for holding things together
including popsicle sticks if you choose to make the wooden frame or pla filament
if you choose to 3D print your frame all parts and supplies are listed with
product links in the description below this video
to make the popsicle stick drone frame we'll print out the blueprint sheet for
the wood and rubber cutouts a free resource file I came up with which you
can download from the link below let's cut out all the wood piece stencils and
begin gluing them onto some ice cream popsicle sticks with PVC glue
stick now it's as straightforward as cutting out the pieces following the
outlines with a hobby knife we'll also soak the most fragile
Parts in super glue to prevent breakage while cutting the arms which will hold
the motors pieces like frame posts can be
cut from a match stick now that we've cut out all of the
frame pieces we'll help reduce the weight of the overall frame by sanding
down each piece till they're as thin as a credit card except for the forearms
which need their original thickness for strength with that let's begin
assembling the frame once assembled the frame should
look like that of one from a larger 5-in fpv drone and since this drone will also
have an fpv camera let's add this piece of wood to the front so It'll point
slightly upward next let's poke a couple of holes
for the power connector to protrude heading back to the blueprint sheet
let's take some bicycle wheel tube Rubber and use the stencils to cut out
the drone's bumper guard strips and glue those to the frame to strengthen the frame even more
let's coat the most vulnerable areas with a look of
superglue if you choose to save time and cut out the fiddly work by instead 3D
printing your drone frame consider purchasing my 3D model of the frame
through clicking the link into description below but in this video
we'll stick to using the wooden frame out of the two options to keep it more
DIY friendly next up let's work on making the drone's motor driver board if
not ordered from the links below components to make it can be found in
old electronics I found my resistors and diodes this way when dealing with
sensitive components like these Field Effect transistors be sure to wear an
electrostatic discharge wrist strap to prevent zapping them with the builtup
static electricity from your body we should have four sets of each SMD or
surface mount component on a perforated board we'll start with soldering the
mosfets followed by the shot key flyback diodes and the 10 kiloohm pull down
resistors we'll finish off by soldering a line for ground and the power line
which will be soldered on later let's cut clip and sand the little
board to reduce its weight and size it doesn't even weigh a single gram nice
now let's hook up some signal wires and create that power line for each
transistor that I mentioned of earlier to take things to another level
we're powering the Drone with quality components from d robot we just received
some contributing parts for the Drone such as a tiny passive buzzer a Sixaxis
motion tracking sensor and a set of four brushed Corless motors which we're soon
to install into our DIY frame and if you're a maker who loves robotics or
building drones like I do DF robot.com is your One-Stop shop for those kind of
electronic parts with their extraordinary selection of Motors
sensors microcontrollers single board computers camera boards along with AI
cameras and and so many more parts to get the most out of your projects what I
find truly sets DF robot apart isn't just their high-end components it's
their commitment to empowering makers like you and I with the most accessible
and upto-date equipments to pursue our passion so if you're ready to take your
projects to new heights click the link in the video description below to shop
for your parts at DF robot.com let's continue the drones assembly by
installing this set of 6mm Corless Motors into our frame secured with
Superglue having the wooden top off will allow for
better access to install the newly made motor driver which is glued in this
crevis next we'll install these zip ties pointed down for both the drone's feet
and for securing the motor wires now comes the wiring of the motors
we'll connect them directly to the flyback doodes with like polarities
according to the diagram which you can find linked below and not the way I show
here due to using the wrong pairs of Motors please excuse me with a power
supply we can run a quick test to see that each motor runs when pulling the
transistors [Music]
High next we'll focus on prepping the drone's modules for installation
starting with the nrf24 radio transceiver we'll remove the soldered
pin headers to reduce weight replace them with wires for power and
communication and then glue the radio module into the rear of the frame against potential short circuits from
the motor driver being exposed let's seal it off with some Capon
tape now we're going to make the drone's flight controller using an Arduino Pro
Mini microcontroller board the 3.3 volt version since it'll be running off just
a lipo cell paired up with the mpu 6050 gyro accelerometer sensor to determine
the drone's orientation we'll Mount and connect it to the Arduino using only a
two pin header for the two wire communication and a couple of more wires
for power as it works with 3.3 volts and 5 volts I do suggest you power it
directly from the LiPo battery for a more consistent power
supply against shorting we'll patch up the radio module's pins with hot glue
before sliding in our flight controller stack which gets secured with a dable of
superglue at the module's Crystal oscillator for support let's solder a
temporary power connector with wires for the battery to connect to the flight
controller now you see diverted wires going out to the right for driving the
motors and wires at the left of the Drone for the radio module's connection
however we'll begin wiring for power starting with wiring the nrf24 to get
powered from the gyro module's 3.3 volt regulator as it has filtering capacitors
which works in perfectly reducing the need of additional caps then we'll work
on getting the motor driver some power and begin wiring the radio module's
communication lines while keeping connections short now let's install this 5volt passive
buzzer or speaker right under the front of the Drone so we can indicate its
status and the switching of modes to program the Drone we'll need
this module called the ftdi or USB to serial converter for which will'll make
a bridging connector so it can connect to the Arduino Pro Mini in the Drone
before we connect the drone and go through setting it up on the computer
let's have a closer look at the transmitter which will allow us to
control it I made this 3D printed Arduino transmitter based on the one
scen in Emo's video using his transmitter enclosure 3D design with
some of my own modifications and added Parts such as the toggle switches
charging port and voltage divider for monitoring its voltage to know when the
batter is going low you can find the modified enclosure design and wiring
diagram of the transmitter I made as well as this build video by AO stuff
Linked In the video description the transmitter code that's
specifically for controlling our drone can also be found linked below and
within it you'll see where to adjust pin definitions based on your Hardware so now we can connect the Drone
to a computer through the ftdi converter and open the code folder which you can
find linked below along with the multi wi software and then we'll open the
drone's code file code credits go to electronoobs for the adapted multi-e
drone code in here is where we make changes for hardware setup and
fine-tuning if you followed my exact drone wiring you don't need to change
anything in the code however you'll most likely need to swap around a pair or two
of radio channel values if your transmitter's joystick values appear
reverse and you may also need to swap the yaw direction if your drone appears
to turn the wrong way when steering to upload let's first go to tools and make
sure we have the Arduino Pro Mini selected along with its corresponding
voltage rating and comport for a firm data connection we'll
hold down the programming connector and hit upload when it reaches this point
after compilation we'll need to hit the arduino's reset button and see that it
begins uploading code to the board once done we'll go over to the multicopter
configurator software called multie and open up the version of this software
that corresponds to our computer's operating
system once opened it should look like this let's open our drone's comport and
hit start now we can see how the software
interprets the drone's orientation with a transmitter turned on if all works
with the connection each joystick movement should come up on the software
and up here is where we select switch channels for toggling modes and
initiating the Drone we'll take a high level box on aux one for arming the
Drone drone and take the same box on Ox 2 for activating the Beeper alarm to
know the drone's whereabouts through hearing after that let's click right and
then read to save those changes now when you flick on the arm switch the Drone
should allow for its Motors to spin up when you increase the throttle and the
buzzer should be when you flick the corresponding
switch all right now that our drone software and firmware are set up let's
ensure the pwm outputs for the motors are in sync and to do so we'll be using
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pinpointing those crucial pwm frequencies from the Arduino to ensure
smooth motor operation and the inbuilt multimeter for gauging those fluctuating
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imagine let's continue by finishing the drone's wiring with the motor driver
signal wires connecting to their corresponding Arduino pwm pins as
showing on the diagram with a battery plugged in we should be seeing the
motors work proportionately as we increase throttle let's also add on the
propellers and see if it flies unfortunately it does not lift off and
simply resets all tutorial aside stick with me as I troubleshoot my way to
getting it off the ground I tried adding filtering capacitors at the Arduino and
radio modules power inputs which seemed to prevent the Arduino from resetting
but the Drone still could not lift off so I found the motors to be the culprit
I happen to choose a set that was too weak and was missing two Motors of the
opposite direction so I bought four new motors with the opposing Direction pairs
the motors I wrongly chose from DF robot only produced six G of thrust each while
the new ones gave 14 G of thrust which is more than twice the thrust of the
others this means with all four the Drone would be getting a total of up to
60 G of thrust which is more promising I then clipped and melted out the motors
and replaced them with the new ones while leaving connections accessible
underneath to make polarity swapping easier but then the Arduino resetting
issue returned with the newly installed Motors preventing me from throttling up
I even tried adding capacitors at the motor Terminals and hoped that they
would smooth out the voltage ripples but with no luck again so then I picked up
on a form thread that mentioned adding current limiting resistors between the
output pins and the transistor Gates would help but that only made the Drone
behave worse then using the oscilloscope I found out the arduino's pins outputed
a pwm frequency of 500 HZ to the motors which was way too low to drive them
causing the extra electrical noise on the pins so I figured out where in the
code to raise this frequency and managed to get out 2 khz at the most but even
that didn't tone down the electrical noise allowing the Drone to keep
resetting after weeks of going through Toil and frustration with the Drone I
tried one more thing which was as simple as raising the gyro sensor farther from
the source of electrical noise and that stopped the Arduino from resetting
however the issues didn't stop there due to how the motor pairs were so out of
tune with each other the Drone started to wobble side to side
aggressively choosing to solve the core problem first I went ahead and got an
old laptop to extract some copper sheet which really helped reduce the EMF
effects on the drone's hardware back to the tutorial let's cut a near equivalent
Siz sheet of copper to the dimensions of the Arduino Pro Mini cover it in clear
tape solder a ground wire and lightly glue it to the underside of the Arduino
while leaving the programming pins untouched and as you notice I resolder
the mpu 6050 back on the pin headers so we'll finish off with the EMF blocking
Shield by grounding the copper plate for stability reasons during the tests I
glued on some hot glue sticks as the drone's landing gear which shows that it
needs to sit on a perfectly flat surface to work getting rid of most of the
wobble we finally got it flying but of course I
replaced a temporary landing gear for the zip ties like the ones it had on
earlier now we'll install the drone's fpv camera a 3 G 600 tvl resolution
firstperson View Camera with a built-in transmitter let's clip off its connector
and install the camera in the front of the Drone feeding directly from the
battery's power parad with a set of 5.8 GHz fpv
goggles we should see the drone's fpv feed displayed live next let's close up
the Drone with its cover but first we need to secure the battery connector
through the two holes made earlier and have the power wi soldered to the pins
through the other side keep in mind the right wire polarity so to mount the
battery instead of velcro straps we'll secure a piece of larger rubber band as
a sort of a pocket to keep the battery on top of the Drone after that we can
finally close things up for the propellers we're using these
four bladed types that measure no more than 31 mm in diameter to avoid hitting
onboard components and once mounted with attention to how the blades are oriented
the motors with their propellers of appropriate directions should turn this
way to push air downward for the battery we're using a 250 milliamp lipo cell
which simply plugs in into the connector turning on the Drone and to balance it
we can slide the battery either way depending on how it tends to Veer off
and flate all up the Drone comes in at 30 G light enough to be considered a
light wind flyer according to the Drone thrust scale
chart so to get set up with a drone you simply power it on while laying flat
turn on the transmitter followed by calibrating the drone's Gyra with these
joystick movements and after waiting for a few seconds you can flip the arm
switch to unlock the Drone and the sky is
yours but before we go out and fly let's connect the Drone to our PC and quickly
go through some very basic PID tuning in multi-e to smooth out those annoying
pitch and roll oscillations what you do is you
gradually lower the roll and Pitch values on the P column until those
oscillations disappear and down here we can reduce the Drone sensitivity and
reactiveness to inputs by lowering the rate and raising the Expo value smoother
curve after those adjustments we have a much more stable and flyable
[Music] quadcopter let's do a quick bedroom
flight test before we head outside let's fly
[Music] all right guys so now I'm in a more
jungle like location here with the Drone so we'll do a bit of fpv flight around
some trees and see if we can get some good footage here we go [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and if you're looking for a written
version of this tutorial then you can check out my blog post about my drone on
the elector Labs project platform where you learn about the project in a more
summarized form with images and key takeaways to get your own mini fpv drone
off the ground check the link below and visit my page on elector labs
[Music] this just about wraps it up for this
project if you enjoyed the video consider leaving a thumbs up and if
you're keen on making this exact drone check out all the resource files linked
below to use while following along to the
tutorial guys we've also just hit over 100,000 YouTube subscribers together
with the help of every single one of you who supported through liking sharing and
commenting under each of my videos I appreciate you all and remember you can
make anything you set your mind to while we're on the topic of making if you're
more into the fpv stuff check out this video up here where I made this
Powerhouse of a 5 in fpv freestyle drone that goes up to 120 kmph if you're ready
to feel some power I'll see you over there see you [Music]