One of the more recent tasks of my custom drone show drones is the LED light mounts. Getting started, I had only one real option material-wise, based on looking at Stan Humphries’s video covering his complete build, which is 3D printing the attachment.
The concept: An easily detachable clip-on assembly to the legs of the drone. Has mounting for up to LED modules shining in all directions. A diffuser is mounted on the bottom to enclose the whole assembly. With some inspiration from Stan Humphries’s design, I was able to get started designing in Fusion.
The first task was getting the CAD files for the frame assembly. This was more diffuse than expected; a quick search on GrabCad yielded nothing useful. But with some Googling, I found that HolyBro (the frame manufacturer) had uploaded the full CAD reference files onto Wikifactory. With that, I could roughly assemble the frame parts in Fusion 360.
The first concept was testing the fit of a clip and how much pressure could be held before it could come off. And rather basic screw mounting for the Adafruit LEDs:
After printing this initial prototype, I realized two important things:
- The clip style of starting from the middle and moving outward on either side makes it challenging to mount from the bottom quickly
- The LED mounting was not bidirectional. There would be no proper light distribution.
The second design fixed both of those issues. Stan fixed the first problem by doing an opposing hook style on both ends. Mounting could be done by rotating it when aligned to the middle of the frame.
Another feature in the new version is adding a second component: Light Base. The light base has 4 LEDs mounted in all directions at angles to disperse the light as much as possible.
Both components can be mounted together with standard M3 screws threading directly into the plastic. (Adding heat inserts only adds to the complexity, significantly scaling the number of drones)
My next version will include more quality-of-life updates, textured hooks to snap attachments more easily off, a mount for the future diffuser, and more holes in hook attachment for routing LED wiring.