I have just purchased an F550 Hexacopter Frame. A bare frame. This will be my first build. Do I put the frame together then add parts or as I saw on a Youtube the parts were fitted to individual legs before assebling the frame?
Would welcome advice on building.
Horses for courses. I built my frame first. But it also depends what electronics you are putting on, i know it doesn’t help. But it’s your build, do it your way.
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Thanks, no special electonics. It will be bit by bit as and when I can afford parts, Will build frame when I receive it.
You really need to decide where the ESCs, power distribution board, batteries, flight controller, radio receiver, and GPS, are going to be mounted. Otherwise, you could find that you need to dismantle the frame to gain access for their installation. Good luck with the build,
We’d very much welcome seeing your build thread too @jj2018 
Some more detail would be useful, Do you intend to use it as a cameraship or a fun-flyer? Are you going to build it all at once or will you be adding bits as you go along?
I built my F550 back in 2012, and back then I think there were more options than there are now as self building, other than smaller FPV quads, has all but disappeared.
The first version of my F550 was fairly vanilla. It had a DJI Naza V2, the ubiquitous DJI 2212 red motors, and the DJI 30Amp ESC’s. Underneath was slung a Zenmuse two axis gimbal carrying a GP3 Black. The build was modular so that I could swap arms/motors/ESC’s out in the field by just unbolting the arm and replacing with another pre-assembled arm. Over the years I have added components to it, including longer aluminium arms, an all-in-one DJI propulsion system, swapped out the gimbal for a three axis Zenmuse one, replaced the analog video system with a digital one, a second RF system for waypoints and mission setup, a telemetry converter changing the Naza protocol to FrSky protocol, and a substantial GF and CF adjustable undercarriage so I could retain a central point of balance with different battery configurations. To be honest it won’t win any points on sophistication compared to what can be built today or bought off the shelf. I recently acquired a Yuneec Typhoon H which cost me significantly less than it did to build my F550 and has greater capabilities, but I learned a lot by building my drone before bought my first off the shelf drone.
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I think thats the key. Building one and setting it up teaches you so much.
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Bit by bit, no set plan at the moment. Will have to do a fair bit of research.
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Where are you sourcing the parts from @jj2018 ?
Not sure yet. Frame is coming from Unmanned Tech UK.
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