Finalized what I’m going to do with the frame design last night.  Frame design can be found at this link (Visio document).  This frame is intended to be fairly small, but still robust and very easy (and cheap!) to construct replacement parts for.  M2M distance is ~475mm, which is around the 18.7 inch mark.  This frame is intended for use with 10 inch props (a 10 inch prop will just avoid the baseplate getting into the prop wash).

After a lot of discussion on the AeroQuad forums about mounting the Turnigy 2217-16 motors I got to the arms of the frame, I decided to take a good idea and implement it.

Finished the FT232R to FTDI-Cable adapter I blogged about earlier.  Assembly was trivial - I just soldered female pin headers to a piece of prototype board and jumpered it all with some hookup wire.

SAFETY WARNING:  Mains voltage (particularly in Australia, where it’s 240V) can kill.  This is not a joke.  Improperly handling this equipment could result in severe injuries to yourself or others.  This post is just for information purposes and does not constitute an instruction guide.  I can accept no responsibility for any harm or loss that may be incurred through attempting to do the below.  Please, please, please be careful.

Received the bulk of the remaining parts yesterday, so now I’ve got my motors, ESCs, and props.  What I wound out getting was;

Now that I’ve got the shield put together, the next step is to design and build a frame and container for the MCU and other electronics.