I strongly advise against flying this in any area where people or buildings are nearby.
The Wii Remote's sensors were not designed for RC use.
Loss of control, flyaways, and crashes are real risks.
Take full safety precautions before attempting anything like this.
I got sidetracked by a personal 3D printing obsession, but let's get back to the Wii Remote multicopter.
In the previous parts I covered all the materials.
On to assembly. The basic quadcopter build is well-documented elsewhere, so I'll keep this brief.
Assembly
Starting with these parts:
Assemble the frame:
Solder the ESCs to the battery leads.
Some frames have a carbon fibre power distribution board with pads you solder directly to.
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If your frame doesn't have a built-in power distribution board, a dedicated ESC distribution board like this is handy.
I soldered directly, but adding banana connectors in the middle for easy disconnection would have been the smarter move.
Mount everything on the frame along with the MultiWii.
In the photo the ESCs are on top of the frame, but mounting them underneath apparently makes for a more stable build if the wiring allows.
Normally you'd connect a standard RC receiver to the MultiWii at this point. Here, we replace the receiver with an Arduino UNO + USB Host Shield + Bluetooth dongle stack.
Wiring details come later — for now, just find a way to mount the stack on the frame.
Screwing it to the edge of the carbon board like in the photo works, but the cantilevered mount is prone to screws loosening from vibration in flight.
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An alternative is to use nylon standoff screws to build a three-layer sandwich: MultiWii → Arduino UNO → USB Host Shield.
Nylon standoffs are surprisingly hard to find at hardware stores, and most metal standoffs are too heavy.
Also: if the quad lands inverted in a crash, the USB Host Shield's pin sockets can break.
However you mount the stack, the USB Host Shield is always the most vulnerable part. Consider it expendable before you start.
Next time: flashing the sketch to the MultiWii. Whenever I feel like it.
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