crazyflie 2 with off the shelf frame

[johnny]

Hi,

I like everything about crazyflie 2, apart from the fact that its size might not be what i am looking for. I would really like it to be a larger proper drone size, not a nano drone. Can you please tell me if there is an easy way of extending its frame by buying an off-the-shelf one with motors and electronic speed controllers and related things? That frame would need to be compatible with the crazyflie 2...I am just looking for an easy way to enlarge its size.

Thank you for your help.

john

[arnaud]

There is a big-quad-deck that allows to connect off-the-shelf motor controller to the Crazyflie: https://www.bitcraze.io/bigquad-deck/. For example this deck makes it possible to develop on the Crazyflie safely and then to use the same algorithm on a bigger quad.

[johnny]

Hi arnaud

Thank you very much for your suggestions.

I am very new to this. Could you please make a couple of recommendations perhaps about frame, motors, etc. that will work with the crazyflie 2?

And will the source code that you provide for ROS will be working fine when I put bigger frame, new motor controllers and motors?

john

[johnny]

I am really into buying crazyflie 2, due to its open source capability but I need to make sure that it will work when attached on a bigger platform and different motors.

[theseankelly]

Hey Johnny -- the crazyflie2.0+bigquad deck will mount fine with just about any frame that supports common/popular flight controllers (like the naze32). It'll work with any escs running BLheli or simonk firmware.

I'm currently running a lumenier qav210 with dys 1806 motors and dys 12A escs (3s lipo only). But really, anything will work.

Sean

[johnny]

Hi Sean,

Thank you and really appreciate your response.

Could you please (or anyone else) give me a more detailed example of crazyflie 2 with a bigger frame? I am really new in this area and I am looking for an easy ready to fly solution.

Also, will I need to do some tuning? Does the crazyflie 2 provide an GUI that can be used to do that?

[theseankelly]

Sure, let me start with a couple comments which are not specific to the crazyflie:

"Easy ready to fly solution": There are a handful of "RTF (ready to fly)" or "ARTF (almost ready to fly - usually everything but radio receiver)" solutions out there but they usually come with flight controllers and it *probably* won't be simple to just swap out the crazyflie (the ones I've seen have the FC buried deep inside some plastic housing, etc). HOWEVER - I would strongly suggest you build from scratch. It will require a lot of research, planning, and work, but resources are abundant on the internet and you'll learn a ton. Think of it like building a PC from components -- there are a basic set of components you need (flight controller, motors, motor controllers, receivers). There are hundreds if not thousands of options for each category, but they pretty much all work together just fine because they speak common protocols - and you end up with something better and way cheaper than an off-the-shelf solution. Another reason to build scratch is that you are going to crash and break stuff. If you've built your quad you'll likely know exactly how to fix it. I've found that it's half the fun of this hobby -- and there's a reason even the best pilots travel with a bag full of parts and tools (even lipo powered soldering irons).

"Will I need to do some tuning": Yup. But that's true of any quad, RTF or not. Tuning is one of the hardest things but there are tons of resources out there to help. The software tools for tuning the crazyflie are not as full-featured as something like cleanflight or betaflight, mostly because the Crazylie 2.0 (the normal one -- not a larger build based on it) is a specific, constant form factor where one set of tuning variables OUGHT to work across all copters. TODAY For tuning, the Crazyflie Client app has a panel that exposes all the parameters that can be tweaked to your liking, but these parameters do not persist across a reboot - so you'll need to play around with values, find some you like, and then recompile the firmware with those settings. If you like coding there's definitely some room for improvement there if you want to jump in and get involved and come up with a way to save parameters to the EEPROM or something like this . All of that said, I also ported betaflight and cleanflight to the crazyflie2.0 (and the Crazyflie 2.0 BQ deck). If you're just starting out, I might suggest you look in to that because 99% of the resources on "how to tune a quadcopter" on youtube teach fundamentals and theory using the cleanflight/betaflight configurator as a practical example.

Now, more specifics of my build. Here are a couple photos:





The build is the QAV210 frame, DYS 1806 motors with 16A DYS ESCs running BLHeli. You can see the crazyflie 2.0 mounted on the BigQuad deck, both of which are stacked on top of an Arris PDB with an integrated OSD. Using a fatshark camera with a generic 200mW video transmitter. Using an external UART Rx (Spektrum SPM4648) but the BigQuad deck also supports CPPM receivers (I also have and have used an OrangeRx CPPM receiver).

Here's some links to the stuff you see:
Frame: Lumenier QAV210
Motors/ESCs: I got an earlier version of this set that had 16A ESCs. I probably wouldn't buy this again because they can't handle 4s batteries -- I'd look for 2204-ish motors with 20-30A ESCs
PDB/OSD: PDB with integrated OSD (looks like it might be discontinued)
Receiver: Spektrum 4648

Hope that helps -- feel free to ask more specific questions if you have them.
Sean