X8
Another popular coaxial design is the X8. The frame itself looks
almost identical to a quadcopter, with the main dierence being
that each arm now has two motors and props for a total of eight.
Materials
Many
dierent types of materials are used to build the modern-
day drone. Some of the more popular options include carbon
fiber, fiberglass, and various types of plastic or metal. As with
most things in this hobby, you’ll always perform a balancing act
based on which characteristics are important to you. There is an
old saying in this hobby, “Cheap, strong, or lightweight: you can
have any two.” While materials like carbon
fiber may have a very
high weight-to-strength ratio, they can be very expensive to
work with. For this reason, many people begin by making their
designs from wood, or even 3D-printed acrylonitrile butadiene
styrene (ABS) plastic. The frame that we will be working
through in this book is called the Little Dipper and is primarily
made from G-10 fiberglass (see Figure 2-2). We think this mate-
rial is a nice balance of weight, strength, and cost.
Figure 2-2. G-10 fiberglass frames being cut on a CNC machine.
18 Make: Getting Started with Drones
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