THIS FIRST PAGE WILL HAVE ALL RECENT UPDATES:
This is my interpretation of Flite Test H quad plan.
I do not care much for finishing details, but I care for safety and functionality remember that this is a prototype. If it gets some day to a stage were I can say 'its done and finished', then I will build a new one all nice and polished.

Objectives:
A frame that protects and hides electronics
Stable platform for GoPro image capture (in progress)
Dirty CHEAP
Easy to build and repair

Solution:
A Quad frame that only uses three (3) main parts (2 arms and 1 body)
Body is made from PVC pipe from a rain water drainage system, with drilled holes to lighten and also strengthened to torsion by adding firewalls and cross beam diagonals.
v2.0 Arms are made from aluminium square tube and screwed to PVC.
v2.0 Landing gear with servoless system

Advantages:
v2.0 Aluminium arms are separated from fuselage with rubber vibration dampeners
Camera mount is isolated with rubber vibration dampeners
Electronics are protected
Easy to include a retractable landing gear
Frame weight is less than 300g (around 275g) without landing gear and camera gimbal
Cheap
Easy (to DIY you must have a drill bit to make holes of large diameter in PVC)
Have I said CHEAP before?

Price:
v2.0 in aluminium, PVC tube, firewalls, zip ties, 3mm screws and locknuts... I did no spend more than 8 EUR

Flying:
Super stable
Very good optical recognition of position in air
I was used to fly a Tricopter (RCExplorer Style) and this model is even more stable and has more power to handle almost 1,7kg of total weight with equipment, camera, batterry, FPV, etc

Donations and ideas for v2.0:
I'm thinking on v3.0 and I'm on one extremely low budget if anyone wants to donate-me the following materials I would thank and appreciate it:
- 1 camera gimbal for GoPro
- good quality rubber dampener to isolate the arms vibrations from fuselage, but keeping the arms solid not loosing torsion movements from motors.
- one CNC cuted box fuselage like mine with 2 internal and 2 top firewalls 70x70x470mm this would certainly pimp my ride
- thermal retractable material to cover the fuselage (I will try first with tape to see if wind force becomes an issue with such a large fuselage closed)

Everything else you want to know go ahead and ask me.

Could you show how you made the gimble or do a close up picture on it. I have the parts for an fpv quad and am waiting to build it, but this is a very nice clever design

The gimbal cost me no money, because:
- GoPro holder is part of a box for business cards
- Servo for tilt is screwed to a piece of fiberglass from leftovers
- Servoplate from tilt servo is screwed to a plastic U shape that I cut from a piece of plastic I found I garbage some years ago and always thought that will have its purpose.
- The U plastic is screwed directly to a servo I had spare from one heli

The concept works, but I'm going to replace the business card box for something more stiff, because this is the first probable cause for jelly effect.
The second iteration to this gimbal will be to replace th plast U for something more stiff
The third iteration will be for the U plastic not to be screwed to servo but to gimbal plate, and by pulley and rubber belt connected to servo.
The fourth iteration it will be to put a timing pulley in tilt servo and another one 2:1 in camera tilt axis (450 heli material that is cheap)

Thanks, I might use a similar design for the gimbal

Gotta tell YA....That's one of the most creative and cost effective ideas I have seen so far....Great ingeneuity.....!

You could use MonoKote to cover your litening holes in the box frame...comes in a million colors and is heat applied.

it's very interesting frame with small weight.
how you mount you FC and other part to frame, with tape?

Originally Posted by NYbySky

Thanks, I might use a similar design for the gimbal

Go ahead but don't use the business card holder to support the gopro, because plastic is very thin and gives jelly effect to Image. Use instead a piece of hard plastic between servo and screw in the other side.
I'm on a 2.0 version that will also be cost effective

Originally Posted by heli001

Gotta tell YA....That's one of the most creative and cost effective ideas I have seen so far....Great ingeneuity.....!

You could use MonoKote to cover your litening holes in the box frame...comes in a million colors and is heat applied.

Thank you
I'm old school and like doing it myself and love it when it works and its cheap.

Your idea is in my #1 post for test in version 2.0 and it will give a very nice pro finish but it needs to be tested in windy day to see if it hurts negatively the behavior of the model.

Originally Posted by sergebezborodov

it's very interesting frame with small weight.
how you mount you FC and other part to frame, with tape?

Frame has 280g.
For FC I use rubber dampened screws.
For other components that are crucial to flight I use double side tape and also zip ties (with so much holes in frame I have lots of place to hold zip ties. If handy hole is needed I just drill it) (I don't have quality double side tape, so I don't trust it)
To guide the wires in frame I can use hot glue or zip ties.
For other components not crucial double sided tape is enough.

Landing gear will be replaced by cheap 500 heli plastic landing gear... lets see if it continues to be retractable (pics soon)

New version 2.0

can you post video of it fly and even better on how you made it?

Video here:

Voo noturno - Night Flight - Flown with Dragon Link (2 min 45 sec)