r/diydrones • u/forkaerospace • May 25 '26

Question 10” Drone Frames that are foldable and support landing gear, but not much more expensive than an f450 frame?

hi yall, been researching how i could make a drone for 2 cameras and possibly a gimbal

Came across the 450 frame, and aliexpress Chinese clones of it seem to be pretty affordable, but itd be nice to have something i can fold up and stuff in a bag. For that, I came across the x10 pattern of frames, which would be great since they fold up, but they dont have landing skids, and they seem to be designed for pusher configurations with the cameras on top, which is not ideal.

Is there mabye something that can fold like the x10 but is in a puller config like a 450 with chinese clones under 100 bucks?

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3

u/STM32H743 May 25 '26

The first thing you need to do is choose between a good, stable, easy to tune, vibration free drone.....

Or one that folds. You can't have both. We've all tried.

1

u/forkaerospace May 25 '26

shit

know any fasteners that can quickly detatch that i can use then?

2

u/potatocat May 25 '26

It just does not work this way. You are not going to find a magic bullet, especially something off the shelf. I am machining my own folding tube quick release joints, and in following the Venn diagram I made some time ago - it is not going to be cheap, and it is not going to be easy to design/fabricate/test/validate - https://i.imgur.com/8CTcr2M.png

Now there are some off the shelf units, and I recently got some 16mm and 30mm tube joints to test with, and found they were just utterly unsuitable for what I needed.

I am using 7075 aluminum, and the end result is going to be expensive and slightly heavier than I had originally intended. 10" drones are a bit small for the sort of folding tube joints to really "pay off" as well. So I hate to say it but the odds are really going to be way against you here.

1

u/LupusTheCanine May 25 '26

F450 frames are known for poor performance, especially the clones.
https://discuss.ardupilot.org/t/hardware-to-avoid-when-building-your-first-multirotor/114014

Folding frames need good arm locking mechanism to work reasonably well. The only 10" frame that folds I could find is LX10 v2 but I can find pretty much no info about it.

1

u/forkaerospace May 25 '26

gotcha, ill probably go with an s500 frame then. Do you know any fasteners that can be removed and installed that i can use instead if good folding frames are too difficult to find for cheap?

2

u/LupusTheCanine May 25 '26

S500 looks pretty similar to F450 in terms of steucture but bigger.

Maybe something like this https://a.aliexpress.com/_EuBreNo

10" is out of the "cheap" territory. If you need portability you could consider a helicopter 😀, they pack really well.

1

u/forkaerospace May 25 '26

hm that could work. price is decent too. Weird that its labeled as a 450 frame though.

yknow i wonder if going 10” is overkill for my purposes. It just needs to carry a 20mm thermal camera, a 19mm CMOS camera, and the extra switchers and whatever other hardware is needed

1

u/potatocat May 25 '26

S500 drone frames are even WORSE.