Built
Darner the
Dragonfly
The Goal
Fix a palm-sized broken drone from a former professor's lab remains. Get it flying. If it's going to fly, it should look cute too.
Process
Manually ran continuity tests for each component in both the drone and the controller
Researched each component individually and educated-guessed component values
Re-did the circuiting for the controller entirely
Root Cause Found
One fused capacitor. That's it. That's what grounded the whole thing.
The Drone
References
Skillsets Formed
Learnings So Far
One power supply can change everything. A single fused capacitor took down the whole drone — isolate your power path first.
Testing each component individually is the only real way to isolate an error. You don't need fancy equipment — patience and a multimeter goes a long way.
Mental Note
Personal reminder
Build what you would 200% want to use. Something that you have an active use case for.
Grateful For
Future Improvements
Build my own drone from scratch and add cameras to it.