3D printed Tricopter based on David's V2.6

I am a big fan of FliteTest. I check the site every day for new ideas.

Ever since I watched the video of David building his V2.6 design (scratch build), I wanted to build my own. I have already tried and failed to build/fly an X quad and H quad. Since David gave me enough confidence, I went for it with his V2.5 instructions on rcexplorer.se. David is awesome.

I have an APM 2.5 flight controller, so I wanted to mount it on top of the tricopter. The original design was slightly smaller, so I had to stretch it a little and add the mounting holes. Enjoy the maiden flight & crash video. I included thingiverse links below.



Maiden Flight Video & Crash




3D printable parts

I found a 10mm version of the v2.5 tricopter base design on thingiverse, and luckily the scad version was available. Thank you Mark Cheverton. I learnt coding in openscad and modified this design to fit an APM 2.5 on top of the base with holes for mounting with 1/2" (12.7mm) bass wood booms. I am trying it with 350mm wood booms for its first version, but it might work better with a slightly shorter back boom.

For the battery mount/vibration dampening system, I re-imagined them to be 3D printed.

I tried David's landing gear, but the 3D printed versions broke on first flight, so I modified it to a T design.

I am still working on the servo mount and the back motor mount. I hope to be done soon.

The scad files are included for all designs with comments. I hope to see others modify the designs and share their versions.



Files on Thingiverse

Tricopter Base

Vibration dampening system parts

T-shaped landing gear


PICS:
triClosedForTravel.jpg
triReadyToFly.jpg
 
A crash on the second flight tore the single nylon gear in my turnigy MGS750 (metal gear) servo. I am waiting for extra gears from hobby king to fix the servo and try again.

I noticed that hobby king shipment from Malaysia or Singapore does not show up in their tracking sites. I wonder if it has anything to do with them clubbing items to a make a palate before assigning it a common tracking number?