The Frame: ST-450

Some parts are starting to come in.  I placed orders from a bunch of different places including Value Hobby, Hobby King, Ready Made RC, Amazon, and Ebay.  Surprisingly (or maybe not) everything I ordered off Ebay I received in a couple of days, then everything from Amazon, then the items from Value Hobby.  Ready Made RC gear is on track to be here by the 16th of January, but the Hobby King stuff, even though I made sure everything was in stock and in the US Warehouse is going to get here last - sadly that batch is the one I need the most as it might let me know if I need to buy some more small stuff like connectors and the like.

ST-450 Frame with phone for scale.

Anyhow, the frame (ST-450 Quadcopter Frame) arrived today.  I was going to post a video about it's assembly, but much to my surprise it basically came fully assembled!  All I had to do was extend the landing gear feet and add a couple of screws to lock them in place.  The frame has folding arms and those were loose on arrival, so I had to tighten them up.  One thing I noticed was that when tightening those bolts it was important to not over-tighten them as you could locally bend the frame doing so.

ST-450 Frame with phone for scale.

One of the things that struck me was just how small this frame was relative to my expectations.  When I had seen photos of it there was no scale so I couldn't tell.  Then when I read the technical specs I misinterpreted the size.  I thought that each arm was 450mm in length; however, it turns out that it is 450mm from tip-to-tip.

That's not really a problem for me though.  From looking at it I still think that the ESCs will fit neatly inside the arms and I'm relatively certain that the motor will bolt on without any need for an adapter.  There is plenty of room in the center for the electronics.

The only concern I have about the size is the ability to mount two batteries instead of just one.  However, I don't think that will be a problem as I can pretty easily adapt the battery harness with just a little bit of work. I hope so anyway.