Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Hello!

Welcome to my Tricopter Project

This is a custom project designed by me. At the beginning this was mainly for doing some agressive flips but I made some modifications to make this work as a FPV machine too.

Made with 2mm plywood and aluminium tubes, the result it's a very light and powerful machine. I designed all plywood parts on a CAD software and cutted them in a big CNC Milling Machine.

This was the Template that I made for the Milling Machine:



Then after programming the Machine it is ready to start the cut:



Video of the Milling Maching cutting my Tricopter:



The result wasn't good enough (too much errors) so some handwork was need for get the Tricopter parts out of the plywood plate:



After all issues fixed the plates finally fit in place:



The yaw motor needs to be modified to fits in place:



Simple yaw system build with landing gear parts from a rc airplane and a carbon rod for the axis. Strong and smooth:



Cable ties are strong enough for would all yaw system in place and a very light option:



Now it's time to mount a digital cheap servo for make this work:



Z axis done!! :D



More two motors mounted on plywood:



After hold the motors in the aluminum tubes with cable ties next step it's soldering the speed controllers and mount hold them too to the tubes:



After some work on this you could have some troubles as this:



Tons and tons of soldering and everything it's connected. I didn't use a power distribution board for save some space and weight (hope so) and looks a clean:



This was doesn't look so clean but it works:



All ready for prevent a fire and an explosion and yellow connector in place  :D



Now it looks a Tricopter! Almost ready to fly or crash :p



The Multiwii Crius SE 2.5 looks to work too and have a very powerful blue led that is brighter than the sun and dazzles me:



The Crius it's a very small board that is a must for a small tricopter or even smaller projects as 250mm Quadcopter. The receiver has about the same area:



Almost need some propellers and it should be ready for the first crash :D



Ok now it's ready for crash or fly. I really prefer the second option but sometimes...



Here is mainly parts links used in this build

Motors: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=5354&aff=157138

Propeller: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=22334&aff=157138

Speed Controllers: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=6460&aff=157138

Servo: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=16342&aff=157138

Flight Controller: http://www.rctimer.com/product_761.html

Battery: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=9937&aff=157138

Yaw system: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=8432&aff=157138

Yaw servo: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=16342&aff=157138

Spacers: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=29541

Hook and loop: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=28801&aff=157138

Prop adapter: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=16579&aff=157138

Aluminum Tube Red: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=40650&aff=157138

Aluminum Tube Silver: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=40649&aff=157138

Now it's time for some videos. After many hours of PID tunning it's enough stable for do some aerial footage on auto level mode. I think the problem are these speed controllers and I already ordered some HK Blue Series 30A and will test them soon. The only way to get some decent footage it's on acro mode but it requires more skill to make it steady and level in the air. For aerobatics it a quite impressive machine

This are my PID's that now are the best. They look weird as you can see. Flying these with the default PID's it's a good challenge :cool:

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First time trying some flips:



And second with some adjustments. Crash at the end when I switched from ACRO to STABLE because RC Rate was very high and the Tricopter wasn't level :D




After some practicing it's better now and no more crashes yet :D




Next step will be mount all fpv hardware on this and see  if it works well. I will use a boscam 5.8Ghz 200mw system.

Stay tunned, more stuff coming soon ;)

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Quadcopter MegaPirateNG 3.0.1 R3 

Build and Flights...

Hello!

This my new Quadcopter that I'm running MegaPirateNG 3.0.1 R3 on it. The Mission Planer tool it's amazing for config the quad for optimize the fight. Was a bit hard to config the board but finally arms and it's working nice and stable. 

Specs:

Motors: Turnigy L2215J-900 Brushless Motor (200w)
ESC's: HK Blue Series 20A
Props: SF 10x4.7
Battery: Turnigy 3000mAh 20-30C
Board: Crius AIOP V2
RX: FRSky 8ch
GPS: Crius CN-06 v2.0 


The flight range it's between 12-15min depending of the style of flight.

Some pictures of the entire process:




All wires insides the tubes and everything looks more clean



Ready to FLY!!


Videos:

First Flight:



Onbord with cheap HD camera:




And also on vimeo:


Quadcopter Footage [Windy] from GsantosRC on Vimeo.