I got all the parts in this list from HobbyKing

1 Hobbyking X650F Glass Fiber Quadcopter Frame 550mm
4 TURNIGY Plush 30amp Speed Controller
4 NTM Prop Drive 28-26 1000KV / 315W (short shaft version)  (Note: I think these motors are actually too small; want to put 35’s at 700 – 900 kv)
1 Turnigy 3000mAh 3S 30C Lipo Pack
1 OrangeRx R620 Spektrum/JR DSM2 Compatible Full Range 6Ch 2.4Ghz Receiver w/Failsafe
4 NTM Prop Drive 28 Series Accessory Pack
1 Slow Fly Electric Prop 9047R SF (4 pc Right Hand Rotation) (Note: The 28’s really have to work to get this off the ground with this prop)
1 Slow Fly Electric Prop 9047SF (4 pc)  Note: The 28’s really have to work to get this off the ground with this prop)
1 10×4.5 SF Props 2pc Standard Rotation/2 pc RH Rotation (Red) Note: This prop works much better with the 28’s
1 TURNIGY BESC Programming Card (Note: Optional, but really really useful)
1 Multiwii and Megapirate AIO Flight Controller w/FTDI (ATmega 2560) V2.0
1 NEO-6M GPS Module (Note: Technically not required, but I knew I was going to do some GPS stuff)
1 HXT 4mm to 4 X 3.5mm bullet Multistar ESC Power Breakout Cable
1 HXT 4mm Gold Connector w/ Protector (10pcs/set)
2 PolyMax 3.5mm Gold Connectors 10 PAIRS (20PC)
1 Turnigy 4mm Heat Shrink Tube – RED (1mtr)

Cost of parts: $289.93Cost of shipping: $52.75
Total: $342.68

There were a couple items that I forgot to get from HobbyKing:

Screws and nuts to mount the motors to the frame; ideally 16 3mm x 7-8mm; I only used 8 however since the motor ‘x-bracket’ doesn’t fit exactly on the frame.
Foam padding as vibration isolation for the flight computer.  I used some foam that like memory foam.

Item that I don’t have an not sure where to get yet:

The AIO Pro has 6 pin Molex connector and the GPS unit has a 5 pin Molex connector.  So, I need to remove the 5 pin and put a 6 pin on it.  It is a serial interface so I’m not sure why they are different.

Item that I will purchase next:

3DR Radio Telemetry Kit – 915 Mhz (US) – Sends telemetry data back to computer or phone

There are four major components to the quadcopter:

1. Frame
2. Power Plant
3. Flight Control System
4. Transmitter/Receiver

Frame:

Quadcopter is a class of Multi-Rotor Copters; they can can three, four, six or even eight motors!  Quadcopters offer a good balance of lift capability and cost.  Hex and Octo-copters give more stability and failure control, however, they are more expensive.  Tri-Copters are less expensive, but less stable and have less lift capability.

I’ll be building a Quad-Copter.  The frame I chose is a HobbyKing X650F Glass Fiber Frame.  Looks nice and strong, has plenty of room to mount the Flight Control System and has a camera mount.  Built out it will 550mm (~21 inches) wide.  I think the key for a frame is that it be level and rigid; the motors all need to be at the same level and mounted square to the ground and parallel to each other.

Power Plant:

When I placed the order I pretty much just took a shot in the dark with respects to the motors and props.  With the power system you have the battery, motors, electronic speed controllers (ESC), propellers and wiring harness.  Not sure how mine will turn out; I took a shot in the dark with respect to the motor sizes and I got two sizes of props (. x 4.7 and 10 x 4.5)  The motors are 28-26 NTM motors at 1000 KV (RPMs/v); that might be a tad fast.  We’ll have to see how it works.  I’ve got 3000mAH battery for it and I’m expecting somewhere around 7 min flight times.  Finally, everything needs to be wired up.  There is a power distribution harness that splits the power from the battery to the four ESCs and then to Flight Control System.  The trickiest part here is matching up all the connectors on all the parts; but that has always been an issue with electrics RC stuff.

Flight Control System:

I’m using a HobbyKing “MultiWii and MegaPirate All-In-One Pro” flight computer.  It is basically an Arduino Mega 2560 w/ an Accelerometer, gyroscope, barometer and magnaometer, I2C port, FTDI port, and 2 serial ports.  It can use MultiWii or MegaPirate software packages for handling all the inputs (receiver and sensors) and setting the motor speeds.  I decided to start with MultiWii; just because it was the first one I came across.

MultiWii can be downloaded from http://code.google.com/p/multiwii/

MegaPirate can be downloaded from http://code.google.com/p/megapirateng/

Transmitter/Receiver:

I’m using a Spektrum DX6I 6 channel transmitter and I paired it with a very inexpensive Orange DSM2 receiver.  The transmitter for quadcopters are normally setup in ‘Acro’ mode.  This is because the ‘Heli’ mode does the mixing of the channels in the transmitter, but the Flight Computer does the mixing for quadcopters.  So, we don’t typically want to do much mixing in the transmitter.