My Carbon Fiber FPV-AP Tricopter

[thundead]

Hey everyone,

Been working for a while on an AP tricopter and after going through several versions I finally came up with this:



Some Specs:

Frame:
-Self build full carbon fibre frame
- 1m diameter (500mm arms)
- Bare frame weight: 250g ( << MUHAHA ;D )
- AUW no batteries/gimbal/gopro: 820g

Power Setup:
- 750kv Hextronik DT750 motors
- 18A ESCs
- 10x4.7 GWS props (tried some 11x4.7 as well but very dodgy and unbalanced....)

Running on either 2x2200 3S or 1x3000 3s Lipo

draws 12A at hover with 11x4.7 props and the 2x2200 lipo packs

Controller:
Mutiwii Fyduino shield + sensor board shield (+Wii gyros + acc + mag)



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Other technical stuff:

Direct drive Yaw mechanism:





Gimbal attachment:





Battery Tray:






Foldable Frame:





FPV Setup (to be added)

-5.8 vTx
-SimpleOSD Open from Flytron (been waiting for nearly 3 weeks. I'm beginning to get worried. Emailed them but still no reply on how to resolve this issue.... Guess it's back to the ol' Paypal resolution center....)

Bonus feature :D
Next Level FPV Goggles  :P (details will follow in the Equipment Mods section later on)




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Maiden Video:
Carbon Tricopter Maiden


Used some gws 11x4.7 props on its maiden but they were crap (v badly balanced) so I switched to some 10x4.7 for now. A bit of piloting error there but frame survived just fine haha :D




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Now my question to the community:

If I'd construct a few carbon frames for roughly 50-60 quid each would anyone be interested ? if so let me know and I'll post a topic on the Classifieds section with more details.

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Questions fire away :D

Cheers,
Mihai.

[TeeJay]

Blimey thundead, it's spooky going through that

I had very much the same in mind, in the past I've even used the same material as a box for a GoPro on the front of my quad even on the same Jakub mount
Same arm lenth as well as the same motors and props

I'm guessing your's is inspired by dadde ?

[thundead]

haha yup, went for Dadde's direct yaw idea and it actually works great. Motors were a bit tricky... started off with some 800kv ones, tried some1000kv ones and ended up using the hextronics. Still not sure which was better. the 1000kv were definitely lighter (40g I think ) compared to the Hextrons....

Made that nifty Correx box for the gopro since it's much lighter than the gopro's case and I'm not planning on going underwater with my tri any time soon :)

Think the arm length is spot on as well. Really gives me that nifty smooth and slow control needed for AP.

[martink1974]

looks sweet m8y

, like your yaw solution :)

cant make my mind up with my tri to use double servo or make platform with push pull system with 1 servo , but yours looks very affective

[mr snoops]

It looks really well sorted, i've just swapped to the hextronic 750 motors they are super powerful but they are really heavy also .
When u put the go pro and vtx and extra batt. on could you post the all up weight? thanks, happy landings

[thundead]

yup the hextronics are really great motors.. can't wait to get a few more from HK when they arrive in stock. Quite heavy though.

Well, AUW with Gimbal, gopro, 2x2100 packs,video gear = 1500g  :o haha but with 11x4.7 props I get min 10 mins flight time. Vids coming soon. still waiting for the darn weather to get back on track.

[g.collins]

Looking good, looking good.
;) G

[Miles]

Looks great :) Only thought is how does the Carbon Fibre interfere with the control and video signal?
But nice one :)
Miles

[thundead]

well haven't tested the range yet but went about 500m in my tests and sig was ok :)

[jiberjaber]

Hi Mihai,

That looks great :)

Was your range test with the copter on the ground with power reduced?

I would be a little worried about that one antenna you have laid flat on the carbon deck.  You might want to make sure the end is out in the air off the edge of the deck.

I had a glider go failsafe on me when heading back  to home from about 1Km out, it was nose on and even though the fus was all kevlar, the motor was enough to create a radio shaddow behind it at that range.  That was with a Futaba 8ch FASST...

Better safe than sorry and all that :)

It does look the mutts nuts  :cheers:

[thundead]

I'm using a 2.4g Frsky module on the tri. didn't do the reduced power ground test (oops :)) ) but haven't flown to far any way.

was thinking I should raise that antenna just in case haha. I'm probably gonna switch to a LRS system in then end.

[thundead]

Some more pics. Enjoy :D

Gimbal setup




vTx mounting


My gimbal socket :D




Revised my antenna position :D Sorta' 90degree V style

[Miles]

Looks good :) Just keep the polarization and your all good :)
Every time I see this, I want one more and more lol
Miles

[thundead]

Just got back from my FPV maiden. She flew beautifully! Soo happy yeeeey! Uploading vid as I type :D

[thundead]

Sorry about the crappy quality :)

Carbon Tricopter FPV Maiden

Enjoy :)

Just got back from my FPV maiden. She flew beautifully! Soo happy yeeeey! Uploading vid as I type :D