One of the things that I use the most in flying quadcopters that i didn’t anticipate is zip ties. I was flying over the weekend and towards the beginning of the session I knocked my goggles off of the tailgate of my truck and they landed on the patch antenna on the ground.
Thankfully the actual antenna was fine it was just the plastic case the broke. The plastic wouldn’t snap back in place though, so I got some zip ties out and used two to wrap around the antenna case and hold it together. At some point I should probably glue it together, but for now I like how they look with the zip tie repair.
Besides making quick repairs, I’ve used zip ties in quad builds for the receiver antenna wires. They provide just enough stiffness while staying flexible especially with a heat shrink tube over it to keep the antenna in place. Plus I run the antenna under the zip tie so if they do get hit by a prop then it’s the zip tie that takes the damage and not the antenna.
I also recently did a rebuild on my bigger 3″ Acrobrat frame where I was trying to get the VTX and receiver antennas better separated in order to see if the video signal would be cleaner. I removed the old 3D printed mount that had been holding the receiver and VTX antennas, then moved the receiver towards the front of the craft and mounted it’s antennas off of the frame with zip ties like I’ve been doing for my other builds. At first I wasn’t sure how I was going to mount the VTX on the back, the 3D printed mount had the antenna close to the body and I think it was getting blocked by the battery. I ended up using a pair of zip ties to hold it in place on one of the rear cross braces, and I’m pretty happy with how it looks and how secure it is.