The best drone frame selecting for your drone is a huge step in your project. It is also related to other components in drones as our body parts combine with bones.
Choosing a best drone frame type for your drone
There are many types of best drone frames today and few of them are very popular around hobbyists. I’m gonna tell you about all of them.
Tricopter drone frame
As the name of this , has three rotors,This type is not popular than others and I’ll tell about that later.
As the picture above, the front side two motors use o lift the drone and rear side motor with a servo motor used to turn the copter wherever you want.
One little advantage is, you only need a few parts to build this drone, so you don’t have to spend your entire money.
The downside is It’s difficult to control and also can’t use for many tasks.
Because of that, my opinion is if you are an entry-level hobbyist don’t go with this type.
Quadcopter
This is the world’s most famous drone type, As the name of it, it has four rotors. You can see a lot of people called every drone “quadcopter” because of its popularity.
To a lot of drone hobbyists, this type is their first build type of drone and there are few reasons to that,
Easy to build and maintain
There are two types of quadcopter frames as X and + (plus).Most popular one is X type because of the simplicity of quadcopter.
You also can build a best drone frame yourself easily ,In future I’ll post a article about “How I made a quadcopter frame in home”
All four motors use to lift the drone, Two motors rotate clockwise and the other two rotate counter-clockwise to maintain it’s the position. The flight controller changes motor speed through ESC’s to move the drone.
Multi purpose
Quadcopter can use to do tasks like drone racing, arial photography and filming purposes.
Cheap and available at closest hobby shop
Because of the four rotors, the quadcopter drone frame is cheaper than the others.
Most leading RTF drone manufacturing companies making their flagship drones buy using this drone frame type.
So you can see every hobby shop has a quadcopter.
If you are a beginner or this is your first drone project, this type is perfect for you.
Hexacopter and Octacopter
There are few reasons to get these both types to one title. Also, these two frame types are famous among hobbyists who want to make a drone for heavy tasks and here are some reasons for that.
Can lift heavier loads
This drone frame type also working as a quadcopter frame that I mentioned above. You can see these two have six to eight rotors,
By using those rotors, you can carry a heavier lot more than a quadcopter.
Multi-purpose
Hexa and Octa copter types are widely used to do tasks like Arial filming, Rescue missions, and package delivery.
The reason is too popular with that purpose is, these 6 to 8 rotors help to maintain a super stable fight than any type and also lift a heavier load. It also can get longer flight time by carrying a larger extra battery.
Safe to use
As I mentioned earlier, now you may know, drone only needs at least four CW and CCW motors right? because of that, If one motor failed drone can maintain it’s current location perfectly by using its other five or seven motors.
If your target is to build a drone to do one of the above tasks, you should better be going with a Hex or Octa. Ohh one thing I forgot, when we increase the rotor count, you have to spend more money.
Choosing the best drone frame for facing drone
Nowadays drone racing is very popular among drone enthusiasts. When it gets into racing It can’t big and too heavy, right?
best, racing drone frames are smaller than normal frames but the types we discussed above are the same but shapes are a little bit different.
Racing drone manufactures using lite weight materials such as carbon fiber to make these frames.
If you making a racing quad choose a smaller and liter weight frame, also remember to select a good aerodynamic shape.
Choosing the best drone frame size
The best drone frame size is related to your purpose or frame type of drone.
Some of the drone types above have different sizes.
If you want to increase your quad copter’s lifting capacity, then you no need to build a hex, you can buy a bigger quadcopter frame with suitable motor and propeller combination.
Now you may know to increase lift force, you have to increase the size of prop and motor capacity right? so now you need a long axis frame. So better be go with a bigger frame.
Choosing the perfect material for your drone frame
After choosing the best drone frame type, materials are very important to get your drone’s stability and efficient performance. That means if you choose the wrong material for your drone frame it’ll be a kind of a disaster.
Here are some materials we use often
Plastic
This is the most common drone frame material because it is a lot cheaper than others and good in appearance.
That’s why most RTF(ready-to-fly) drone manufacturers use plastic to build their applications.
But the downside is plastics can be easily damaged and some plastics are not very stiff, so it could be bad for your drone’s stability and smoothness of flying.
Carbon fiber (CF)
Nowadays among the most pro hobbyists, carbon fiber frames are very popular. Because carbon fiber is lite weight and strong.
The downside is Its bit expensive than others and CF is blocking radio signals a little bit.
To prevent that Frequency trouble, people use several methods but my simple method is placing my receiver cable outside of frame.
Aluminum and wood
Good materials because of cheapness, so it is popular among home drone frame makers. I also made a frame using aluminum and fiberglass. The downside of aluminum and wood is the inevitable vibration.
My opinion when you choosing a material is if you are a beginner or this is your first drone project, use a plastic frame instead of expensive materials.
Conclusion
The first thing in your mind should be the type or design when picking the best frame for your drone because this is the part that determines your purpose.
Also, other areas that we discussed earlier play a significant role in determining your drone’s durability and performance.
With this post, I hope that you got a better understanding of how to choose the best frame for your drone or multi-copter.
