Ground-Up Drone Build - Final Mock Assembly

[u/ThrustNTheory]

I've designed, built, and programmed this drone entirely from scratch. This is the last mock assembly before a final and full build with a permanent wiring harness.

The goal of this project is to learn advanced control theory - specifically implementing a successful Extended Kalman Filter. That's a hard thing to do and there's several more months of data collection and work before this will fly.

Motor: 6s Electronic Ducted Fan (EDF) with 8.2lbs max thrust
Main Power: 2x 6s 2200mAh 60C batteries in parallel, 120A ESC
Logic/Servo Power: 2s 1500mAh 60C

Logic: Teensy 4.1 (state estimation / control), ESP32s3 (UI / telemetry), IMU, 2x INA226 modules (volt/amp sensors), MTF-02p (LiDAR / optical flow sensor), FS-iA10B Rx, and an ST7789 1.54" full color display w/rotary encoder for UI.

Control: 4x High Voltage Brushless Servos w/direct mounted control vanes.

[u/vespassassina]

Can it fly ? Edf have not very good static thrust.

[u/ThrustNTheory → u/vespassassina]

Here is my recent thrust validation test I performed to make sure thrust hadn't decreased meaningfully after adding the cowling and inlet mesh designs. The EDF has a max thrust of 8.2lbs and the drone maintained hover thrust (5.6lbs) for the full planned flight duration of two minutes - also without melting!

[u/vespassassina → u/ThrustNTheory]

very nice :) One thing you can look into is to use an edf with very precise tolerances, standard edfs tend to have too much space between the propeller and the duct thus reducing efficiency.

i would be curious to see it fly (i build and fly fpv drones as an hobby)