With all those tools, you would need a good way to organize those tools and spares that you want to take with you to the flying field. A rolling bag pouch from Crazy Ants has all kinds of pockets and slots to place your tools and spares in a neat and organized way. It is waterproof and is made of nylon which makes it very durable and virtually indestructible.

Toolkit Rolling Bag

Crazy Ants

Let’s assume you burn out a micro controller on your flight controller. You find a replacement micro controller online and the tech genius inside of you lights up and says “TIME FOR SOME DIY”. Tiny electrical components are tiny and difficult to handle. To cover this aspect, a 64 driver bit form Ifixit does the job. This kit has 3 types of tweezers, 3 types of spudgers, magnetic pads, tool rolls etc..., This kit is a complete repair solution for your electronic repair ventures.

Multipurpose Toolkit

iFixit Pro

The most basic tool required in drone building would be a multimeter. The primary role of a multimeter is to detect voltage across two points. A multimeter also helps to test any discontinuities and shorts that may have accidentally occurred in the process of soldering. Some advanced multimeters also include a current sensor. Aneng AN8008 is our best budget pick. The newly released MS8268 is an auto / manual ranging, packed with many nice features; such as sound and light warning for the jacks and backlit LCD screen. But comes with a bit higher price point.

High Precision Budget Meter

ANENG AN8008

Next on our shopping list is soldering iron/soldering station. A soldering iron has a heated tip that melts solder (a metal with low melting point) so that it can flow into the joints between the two work pieces. The main difference between a soldering iron and a soldering station is the operating temperature. The temperature of a soldering iron cannot be changed, hence the tips temperature remains constant. On the other hand the temperature of the soldering tip in a soldering station can be changed. The temperature can be varied based on the based on the solders thickness.

Portable Soldering Iron Station

TS100

Allen keys aka hex keys are called because they have a hexagonal shape. It is a useful tool to place or remove motors screws and frame parts. If you are planning for a micro quad, the prop adapters are hex shaped, and you will be really pleased to know that you already have the correct size hex key to remove the prop.

Having different sizes of hex keys is helpful and a set with 1.3-6mm will be a good place to start with and they are pretty affordable.

Affordable High Quality Hex Keys

Bit HSS Titanium

When you first build a quad, you cannot be a 100% sure that there is no short anywhere in the circuit. Hence a smoke stopper is used when you first power on your electrical systems. A smoke stopper avoids any damage that may occur when there is short circuit present. The bulb basically acts as a fuse, when excess current flows through it, the bulb burns out preventing any damage. It is pretty easy to make one if you follow this overview.

Stopping the Magic Smoke

DIY

Tweezers help to hold down tiny electrical components which are electrically sensitive. They can also be used to navigate the hard to reach buttons. You will find this tool really helpfull, it's a must!

Stainless Steel Tweezers

RST10-15

A helping is like a third hand that assists in soldering. When you are holding the soldering iron in one hand and solder in the other, it really becomes difficult to hold the wires or the connectors you are trying to solder. This is where you wish you had a third hand. The magnifying glass helps to zoom in if you are trying to solder small solder pads which are hard to see with the human eye.

Thrid Hand Assistant

Soldering Iron Stand | Helping Hands

Epoxy resins come in 2 parts- resin and hardener. Resin is the actual glue and hardeners contain chemicals that cure the resin. Epoxy resins can be classified based on the time they take to cure, 5 min, 15 min and 30 min. The longer it takes to harden the better the bond. If a frame breaks or cracks you can epoxy it and have a frame that is as good as new with a strong adhesive bond too.

Epoxy Resin Coating

G/Flex Epoxy

A parallel charging board allows you to charge more than 1 LiPo at a time. The number of batteries that can be charged at a time depends on the board itself. Usually the number ranges between 4 and 6 batteries. Some expensive advanced boards have fuses built into them, to avoid any damage to the LiPo.

XT60 Plug Parallel Charging Board

ISDT D2 Q6 T6 Lite Charger

A digital weighing scale will give you accurate measurements of the overall flying weight of the quad. If you are building 5” or 6” quads, you can get a weighing scale with upto 1kg capacity. Lower the capacity of the scale, higher the precision.

SCALE

KCASA KC-MT360

A motor thrust stand is a device that helps to determine the thrust produced by a motor. The device has a small dynamo-meter that analyses the thrust generated. It also helps you to determine the best prop combination possible for your desired style of flying. It also monitors the peak thrust generated, maximum current and various other parameters that helps you determine the efficiency and performance of the ESC/Prop combo.

Brushless Motor Thrust Stand

Racerstar V3

A Dremel is a miniaturized belt sander. We cannot expect all the frames to be 100% free from defects. Sometimes you get a bad piece where the pieces just won’t fit. A Dremel comes into picture by letting you modify the carbon fiber frame. It can also be used to round off the sharp edges on the arms of a frame.

Power Tool

MultiPro 220V Electric Grinder

RF stands for radio frequency. This meter measures the power at which the RF signals are emitted. Immersionrc manufactures a RF meter which can detect the powers of frequencies form 35MHz to 6GHz. The RF meter is ideal to test the power output of a video transmitter before a FPV drone race which have output power restrictions of 25mW. 

RF Power Meter

ImmersionRC RF Power Meter

Zip ties are the go to choice when you don’t want to use tapes or adhesives. Zip ties will help hold down a component temporarily in place without placing much stress on the components

Heat shrink tubing is another useful and worthwhile addition to one’s tool kit. After a soldering job, heat shrink is applied over the joint to prevent any shorts and basically acts as insulation for the exposed part of the wire.

Heat Shrink Tube 

1-13mm

Motor screws and propeller lock nuts tend to loosen up over time with prolonged vibrations. It is a good practice to cultivate using locktites for motor screws and proprller lock nuts. It's not standard glue, It feels more like paint or oil . Usually It takes hours to cure and dry after applying.

Threadlock Glue

Loctite

As mentioned earlier, due to prolonged vibrations the screws tend to loosen up over time. Propeller lock nuts are one of the easiest of things to lose and it helps to have spares. The propeller lock nut size varies depending on the size of the motor and hence attention must be paid when ordering spare nuts.

Motor Screw Nuts Propeller Adapter

iFlight M5 4 CW 4 CCW

Nylon standoffs are the plastic pieces that keep the FC+ESC+VTX stack apart. Some frames tend to have tighter and smaller spaces to work with. The standoffs supplied with the FC or ESC combo might be too tall in height, hence a box of nylon standoffs with different sizes and heights comes handy.

Soft Mounting Stack

Anti-Vibration Fixed Screws

Rubber grommets or rubber bobbins is useful to soft mount a flight controller to isolate from the vibrations. Although most modern flight controllers have dampening built into them, it is a good practice to use rubber grommets to mount the flight controllers.