The advancement of Quadcopters and their capabilities over the last few years has been amazing. Unfortunately, the price point to get into the sport with a decent size, non-toy, vehicle is still several hundred dollars. And what’s the fun with buying one when you can built it?!? Strapped for cash and feeling the same way, [Hans] over at the hackerspace Knackatory decided to build a quadcopter from e-waste.

The + shaped frame is made from lightweight plywood. It’s pretty obvious that the main rotors are PC Fans, 140mm in this case. Normally, these wouldn’t be able to create enough lift to get out of their own way except the on-board 24v Dewalt cordless tool battery bumps up the fan speed to 15,000 rpm. The one orange fan allows the operator to maintain a visual reference to which side of the ‘copter is forward.

An Arduino running MultiWii control software is the brains of this UAV. The MultiWii software uses the sensors from part of a Nintendo Wii remote to sense orientation and movement. While there is no hand held transmitter with this quadcopter per se, communication to the host computer is handled by a wireless router running OpenWRT. The router is the gateway that allows the Arduino and Ethernet Shield combination to communicate through the Hackerspace’s wifi network. Flight plans are pre-programmed. Admittedly, the real time control through computer keyboard commands needs a little work. The team plans on interfacing a regular USB game controller with the software.

Making stuff out of e-waste is a great way to recycle. Remember this e-waste 3D Printer?