Air's multicopter project

[ananas1301]

Great. So it doesn´t seem to be extremely difficult! Good to know that or at least have a vague idea of what is coming up.
We should probably start a Tip and Tricks for Multicopters. Gathering stuff like that all together can be very helpful to beginners.
Also everyone telling some tips about what not do on the first flight and what not to do on the build.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Airwolf]

It's not difficult - but It's pretty easy to loose orientation (I had a trouble with that on quadcopter simulator as well). This thing is faster and more maneuverable that I expected too. And it's something totally different than planes (I've never flown rc helis before and I think that would be a great help).

 

[colorex]

I am learning to fly a slow heli on Aerofly Pro Deluxe... It's hard with the orientation!

 

[Airwolf]

Helicopter has tailboom and canopy, and tricopter/quadrocopter etc. doesn't - it's much easier to loose orientation flying multicopter as it's symetrical - that's why it's important to mark it's front and rear somehow...

 

[ananas1301]

Lights! It would be either enough to just have one LED light strip on the rear one or just have two different colors betwwen front two and back!

 

[colorex]

You could easily put a canopy on a tricopter, just like David's V1

 

[Airwolf]

Canopy won't be good enough from several meters. I think LEDs would do much better.

 

[John Campbell]

I am using Landing Lights pointing forward.

 

[Burg]

I use both ..
Canopy:


These underneath the front motors:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__17189__12_LED_Cluster_WHITE.html

And these underneath the rear motor:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__17192__12_LED_Cluster_RED.html

 

[Airwolf]

Thanks to good weather (+6*C in January is very unusual in Poland) I've managed to fly it for a little longer. But it was a bit too windy and the last flight resulted in crash - I've broken all three props at once. I have a short video of these flights and I'll post it later...

 

[Burg]

These underneath the front motors:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__17189__12_LED_Cluster_WHITE.html

And these underneath the rear motor:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__17192__12_LED_Cluster_RED.html

Here are two photo's .. very easy, VERY bright !!

 

[ananas1301]

Looking good! I did one LED strip on the rear arm of a Tricopter. Helps alot as well.

 

[Burg]

Looking good! I did one LED strip on the rear arm of a Tricopter. Helps alot as well.

I noticed that. Was that one of those Turnigy strips ? When yes, did you also use the Turnigy switch ? That one works great with your TX ...

 

[ananas1301]

No I didn´t use the Turnigy straps but they seem to be the same. At least I think they are same sold by another shop in Germany.

They have a very good adhesive on theyir back, so yo don´t need to mess with glue and stuff.

I have a Turnigy switch lying around but I thought of using it in my Event 3D because I wanna be able to switch with that one. not sure though because I don´t want the plane to be too heavy.

However, I have a liitle problem with my Tricopter.
I soldered my connections from the receiver to the board and with my last flight in the living room, sometimes I had glitches in my control.
The Tricopter mostly just suddenly fell to the left for a fraction of a second.
Then when I crash a little harder, my receiver fails to respond AT ALL ! No arming, no disarming or anything like that.
I have to rebind the receiver most of the times. Only when I really play around with the wires etc. it might respond.

I know this usually shouldn´t happen. The first flight didn´t have that issue, so I think the first thing to do is try and look at the solderjoints and the connections, but when I did last time, they all seemed good.
Btw. the connectors do seem to be kinda loose on the KK board. Does anyone have an idea of how to get that away? They are not too loose to come off themselfes but I still think it might something to look at with this.

Btw. I am on holidays with my family (snowboarding ) so I don´t have access to my Tricopter, but I wanna know what to do, as soon as I get home. Also I ordered some Propsavers. I look what I can do with them, because my 3,17mm don´t work properly and keep coming off after a while. Okay that should be it for today. I can only check on the forum on the evenings, but I hope to get some suggestions about what to do.

Also further question: Which Tricopter firmware are you using? I just flashed it with the newest one. I think it is 2,6. Which one do you recommend?

 

[Airwolf]

I flashed my FC with latest tricopter firmware available in kkmulticopterflashtool. I didn't had any problems with this firmware. ESC (and throttle range) calibration is the key but I don't think it's the problem in your case... hmmm

And the movie I mentioned earlier - it's a bit chirpy, it seems my microsd card isn't fast enough):

As you can hear it was pretty windy... It crashed hard in the end (barely visible in the video) - but only damage was one broken motor strap and three props (this thing is harder than I expected! I never crashed a plane from such height and usually damage was worse)...

Damage:

 

[Burg]

Sorry to hear about the crash .. not so much damage I see.
How did you make those landing gear suspension strip things ?

 

[Burg]

However, I have a liitle problem with my Tricopter.
I soldered my connections from the receiver to the board and with my last flight in the living room, sometimes I had glitches in my control.... my receiver fails to respond AT ALL ! No arming, no disarming or anything like that. I have to rebind the receiver most of the times. Only when I really play around with the wires etc. it might respond.

Hi Anas,
Strange... you are using the OrangeRx R610 right ? Me and some others DSM2 users in our club are using these as well. They are very cheap and give relative good range. But they are not fool proof. Doesn't hurt to throw one or two away when the get damaged. If you modded the Rx with re-soldering the pins, try to swap it for another and see what happens. It might be that during soldering you ruined some of the components on the pcb. Note fot that price these components must be the cheapest of the cheapest imo.

Also further question: Which Tricopter firmware are you using? I just flashed it with the newest one. I think it is 2,6. Which one do you recommend?

I have the KK Flycam black board from (multicopter.kr).
http://www.kkmulticopter.kr/index.html?modea=flycamfc
The latest tricopter firmware version is indeed v2.5 (dated Dec 2011 for all platforms)
Works like a dream.

This firmware cannot be used on the KK boards from multicopter.com
Here they provide tricopter firmware v1.5
http://www.kkmulticopter.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51:tricopter-firmware&catid=58:firmware-downloads&Itemid=65
But I believe (correct me if i'm wrong) that LazyZero mirrored this to v1.6 to be able to flash the HK boards to use it on tricopters.

v1.6 works perfect on the KK blue and black boards from multicopter.com.
Also on the V1 and V2.1 boards from HK (no difference).

The multicopter.kr v2.5 firmware cannot be flashed on the multicopter.com black boards nor the HK boards. Well it can be flashed but it doesnt work .. I tested it.

 

[Airwolf]

How did you make those landing gear suspension strip things ?

Those are simply big, 10 mm wide zip-ties. Pretty stiff and light and serve as landing gear very well.

 

[ananas1301]

Those are simply big, 10 mm wide zip-ties. Pretty stiff and light and serve as landing gear very well.

Thats a genius idea! I gotte get some of them.

@Burg: I did solder proper connectors so I wasn´t soldering around the board at all but they are kinda loose... I´ll try making completely new ones. I might also just do another flight to see which axis is the one that has that twitching, so can resolder one wire and put it into the BEC connector.

I hope it will be working...

Btw. I got a confirmation that the propsavers arrived today. As soon as I get home (and school starts again...) I´ll have something to do

 

[colorex]

Btw. I got a confirmation that the propsavers arrived today. As soon as I get home (and school starts again...) I´ll have something to do

Someone said propsavers don't do good on tricopters...