Dragonfly vs Tricopter?

[SoFly]

So I my plan was to build a Tricopter for my senior project, but I have been really interested in the Dragonfl recently and I wanted to know some of the advantages to both. Does the Dragonfly have a higher thrust so it could carry a bigger battery and gimbal? Is the Dragonfly Faster than the tricopter?

Any any answer to any of these questions would be greatly appreciated!!

Thank You

 

[Mostly Harmless]

I built the Dragonfly, recently, and have had quite a learning experience. Here are what I think are its advantages:

- Higher thrust means more payload that can be carried. The additional 2 motors at the c/g increase your total thrust by 66%.

- Two motors on each side give you greater control authority in roll (pitch and yaw control authority are unchanged).

- Redundency: Lose 1 out of 3 motors on a tricopter or 1 out of 4 motors on a conventional multi-rotor, and you're going down -- fast. But you can lose one motor on a side and still retain enough control to bring it down relatively safely (I can attest to this from direct experience). Of course, if you lose the tail rotor, there's nothing you can do.

- Flexibility: If you get tired of a tilt-rotor, take it off, and reconfigure the copter as a quad.

- Speed: I wouldn't know -- I'm not adventurous enough, yet, to try for any speed records... I'm still learning to fly it.

- Cool factor: Yeah, this was a big thing for me -- the Dragonfly just look cooler than the others. And the partially overlapping props make for a unique sound.

Disadvantages:

Cost: Of course, you have an additional 2 motors/ESCs to purchase. The rest of the structure is negligible in cost.

Weight/Power: Not sure if the extra motor weight and power requirements offset the gains in thrust. I'm sure one of the more experienced guys here can chime in on that.


Good luck and let us know which way you go!

 

[SoFly]

Thank you so much for sharing some of your knowledge. I purchased a pack of 980kv sunny sky motors and I think I will purchase one more. It's gunna be awesome!!! Do u think I could run parrallel 2200mah 3s along with gyro with go pro and fpv?

 

[razor02097]

The dragonfly is going to be a lot heavier... Also adding 2 motors is going to eat battery faster. But you will gain a lot of thrust. It kind of depends on what you are wanting to do with it. I would say don't rely on the redundancy too much. If you just putter around that's one thing but if the motor quits during transitioned flight and you don't have cat like reflexes it is still likely going to go down.

Back when I first saw the dragonfly I wanted to build one really bad... but when David came out with the V3 tricopter with the built in BEC and power distribution... I had to have it way more!

Dual 2200 should be sufficient but you should do some research on what prop you should choose. Also make sure those batteries have a higher C rating. If they are only 20C that means they can supply up to 88 amps. Those motors are probably max amp of 18-20A each so between 90 and 100amps. You won't be drawing that all the time but if you go full throttle for a period of time there could be a slight chance of a brownout...you don't want that.

 

[Mostly Harmless]

+1 on the C-rating of the batteries. A brown out (or any other reason for control loss) is a bad thing on a 'copter (I've had this happen, too, when my economy radio temporarily lost lock and the FC went to failsafe cutting the throttle).

I don't rely on redundancy, but it saved my Dragonfly from serious damage when a prop cracked mid-flight. Although the vibration was bad enough to throw off the FC, the aircraft still had enough thrust and control to gently set down with only minor damage to the landing skids.

For me, the Dragonfly's "cool factor" was the strong point that tipped the scales in favor of that variant. But you won't go wrong with any version of an ElectroHub... they are a great entry into building your own multi-rotor. Even though I haven't even begun to stretch the limits of what my Dragonfly can do, I'm already thinking about the next one I'll build and what I need to learn to get there.

 

[The-One-Who-Never-Crashes]

The tricopter is definitely more aerobatic. But as Mostly Harmless said, you can't go wrong with either.