Building a Drone That Flies Itself, Part 2: Half a Plane

A week ago I wrote that I had an idea, a few spools of filament, and a deadline. Now I have half a plane.

About 50% of the first prototype is printed, and I’ve ordered the electronics. Neither of those is a flight, but both are real things I can hold, which is more than I had last week.

Half a plane

The printer has been running pretty much nonstop. Roughly half of the airframe parts are done, printed in the materials I picked in Part 1: PLA Aero for the lightweight parts and PETG where I need strength.

Holding the printed parts changes how you think about the design. On screen everything looks light and solid. In your hand you start noticing the weight of every part, and wondering which ones will survive the first bad landing.

This is a prototype, not the final airframe. Its job is to teach me what’s wrong with the design as cheaply as possible, so I’d rather finish it fast and fix it later than polish every part now.

The electronics are ordered

The other half of this week was spending money. I placed the order for the electronics, which means the stack from Part 1 is no longer a list of options. It’s a list of things in a box somewhere between the factory and my house.

Shipping to Uruguay is never fast, so the timing works out: the printer finishes the rest of the airframe while the parts are on their way.

What’s next

• Finish printing the other half of the airframe.
• Dry-fit everything to see how the parts go together and where the electronics will actually live.
• Bench test the electronics as soon as they arrive: flash ArduPilot, connect the radio, and spin the motors with the propellers off.
• Weigh it. Weight was on my list of hard parts, and this is the first time I’ll have a real number instead of a guess.

Nothing has flown yet, and nothing has crashed yet either. Next post, it should start to look like an aircraft.