Newbie Tri-copter Question

CJGFX

Junior Member
I'm sure these questions have been brought up before regarding building Tricopters, but I find the mass of electronics a mind numbing field.. Some one should really put together and "Tricopters for Dummies" for people like me!!

I would really like to build one to get some nice film footage with my GoPro, mostly line of sight flying. FPV would be nice but not in budget at the present.... Maybe later! So I would like to build David's simple tricopter, as it looks pretty simple to build and can be easily developed in the future. I'd like to use my local hobby suppliers as the postage is seriously expensive from Hobby King so the questions I have for the minute are as follow:-

i) Can a tricopter be flown with a DX5e transmitter, or do you have to have something a little more advanced?

ii) Motors - Can anyone suggest and equivalent to the HEXTRONIK DT750, just tell me what size would be comparable, again so I can lift a GoPro and future FPV gear.

iii) ESC - I know that you can fly tricopters un-flashed, but is it worth getting then flashed and what are the benefits?


Well that's alls I can think of for now, I may add more if I come up with anything. Any advice would be most welcome.

Cheers
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
i) Can a tricopter be flown with a DX5e transmitter, or do you have to have something a little more advanced?

Yes. You can fly them with any transmitter.

ii) Motors - Can anyone suggest and equivalent to the HEXTRONIK DT750, just tell me what size would be comparable, again so I can lift a GoPro and future FPV gear.

The DT750 motors are really great motors, but you could look for any motor in the 700 - 900 kv range, around 200 Watts.

iii) ESC - I know that you can fly tricopters un-flashed, but is it worth getting then flashed and what are the benefits?

No problem at all. It will work fine without flashing, it's just better if you do flash them.
 

Tritium

Amateur Extra Class K5TWM
The benefit of a flashed ESC is rapid response to throttle changes. Unflashed ESC's can have a perceptible delay between command and action.

Thurmond
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
The benefit of a flashed ESC is rapid response to throttle changes. Unflashed ESC's can have a perceptible delay between command and action.

Thurmond

But it will not be any deterrent to your flying. The kind of perception you need to perceive a change will come with time as your skill grows.
 

T-Reu

Junior Member
As I understand it, the delay between your stick commands and the copter reacting to them is not as important as the delay between a command that the flight control board (e.g. KK2 or ArduPilot) sends and the reaction of the motors to it. To keep the copter level and stable, the corrective commands of the board should be executed as fast as possible by the ESCs so you don't even notice it. Right?