The Scrap Drone

What is this?

This is my attempt to make a “drone” / RC plane / UAV from scratch. I challenged myself to build something that works with almost zero experience in building RC vehicles, let alone planes. It started as a small hobby project for a few boring weekends, but, as they usually do, things got out of hand, and I decided I might as well write it all down somewhere. So expect a lot of try and error and even more duct tape ;)

For the flight logs, click here.

On this page, you will find the most recent setup with a bit of background.

For the history and all previous failures setups, click here.

Goals

• It flies.
• It’s cheap and uses as many parts I already have as possible.
• Bonus points for video transmission and some autopilot functionality.

Now, in September 2021, after almost one year, I can finally say that I’ve met all of those, and then some. I went down several rabbit holes, learned some things I never thought about, and overall had lots of fun. Although, I’m not sure if I would do it again; there is only so much engineering fun you can squeeze into the make part of make-or-buy, and sometimes, the journey is, in fact, less interesting than the destination.

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Done reading? Wow. Come back later for more updates.