MAKE | CrazyCopter – A Flying PCB

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By Sean Michael Ragan
Posted 2011/05/03 @ 5:55 am
Category Electronics, Robotics

If the ccTLD is correct, this remarkable CrazyFlie micro-quadcopter project originates from—or is at least hosted on a server in—the South Pacific island nation of Niue. The video reports a 20 gram weight, a 4.5 min flight time using the battery on the underside of the board, and a 12×12 cm footprint. [via adafruit]

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BY Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I write for MAKE, serve as Technical Editor for MAKE magazine, and develop original DIY content for Make: Projects.

In the Maker Shed

5 Responses to CrazyCopter – A Flying PCB

Adrian Lodge on May 3rd, 2011 at 1:56 pm said:

That is awesome but all that potentially wasted PCB between the legs makes me cringe. Maybe there is a more tessellation friendly design?

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Erik Walthinsen on May 3rd, 2011 at 2:09 pm said:

A quick whois reveals the domain (one of the many sell-out ccTLDs) is in Sweden, just outside Gothenburg…

As for a tessellation-friendly PCB shape, I don’t think there is any way to make a 90+% usage tessellation that doesn’t end up with a bunch of unused PCB space in the copter, which is nothing more than dead weight. Unfortunately, I think there’s nothing to be done about that except hope it can be run in a panel that can put useful boards in that dead space.

The radio bothers me though, as that’s something that could be replaced with a nrf24 mounted directly on the PCB.

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Arnaud on May 3rd, 2011 at 2:32 pm said:

I’m a member of the project that did this quadcopter and yes we are in Sweden, .nu is a common ccTLD here as ‘nu’ means ‘now’ in Swedish (and the daedalus.se was not available)

For the radio we have this design because the board was already crowded enough (then the copter was routed the 3axis gyros didn’t exits yet) and we though that for a first shoot we would skip doing the 2.4Ghz PCB design. We plan to integrate the radio chip and antenna on board for the next version.

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Gary on May 4th, 2011 at 4:09 am said:

Great little machine, you should all be proud. Good job.

As an architect I’d like to mention how a little geometry might help performance some.

If the four arms attaching the motors were to attach at the corners, rather than a the center of each side, the same length arms would be further away from the center, and less of the propwash would touch the edge of the board. The arms coming out flat at a 45 degree angle, not square with the board..

From a theoritical point of view, a small three motor unit might be even better, with a tirangular board and arms coming off each corner. Unfortunatly the math might be a lot more complcated, and it might look wierder as well. Just my two cents.

Good work.

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Vaughan J on October 24th, 2011 at 6:44 pm said:

Only learned of this today and will be eagerly following developments. Cannot wait to be able to buy my own.

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