Tricopter Scratchbuild!

[ananas1301]

Okay guys,

As the weather in Germany is quite rainy at the moment I decided to work on a camera mount to carry my digital camera.
(BTW: Up to that last crash where I broke my last crash I wasn´t up flying but the day before yesterday I realised I had 3 8x4,3 Props (i had 9x4,7 before) and one was coloured black (by me but that was ages ago) So I used them for flying and now I can hover perfectly spot on on mid stick on throttle, but that is without any attachments, like camera etc. )

So yesterday I started looking at how to do such a mount and had a quick look at David´s solution. I only had Balsa laying around so I used that cut out at his measurements (19x4cm I believe) and attached a small Key chain cam on it. Flew and all I can say is that I am fairly dissappointed with the quality of those Key chain 808´s. Also the mount broke very quickly.

So to get the vibration out in the first place I did just like David did. Two zipties into a silicon tube (i had from my Monstertruck for the fuel) and attach one ziptie to the frame and the other one to the camera mount. That worked pretty well, as all the Vibration had to go over the silicon tube.
Now what I did yesterday is not directly attach the bottom zipties to a mount but again to another same set of Silicon tube and that second silicon tube now also dapened the vibs even more. Also I just used a 2 cm wide and 20 cm long stick (plywood) and attached that, mounted the camera to the front of it and made my first videos. The went pretty well

That is how far I got now.

 

[Klonas]

As the weather in Germany is quite rainy at the moment

It's not snowing?

Mounted the camera to the front of it and made my first videos. The went pretty well

That is how far I got now.

Could you upload some photos, maybe a video?

 

[ananas1301]

@Klonas:

No the weather in Germany is a little weird at the moment.

I initially wanted to but my Dad confiscated my mobile and internet access for a stupid reason. I only get to go on for important school stuff and not for Flite Test etc. but as you can see I am writing.

Just don´t wonder now if I don´t post as much as usual. I hope everything goes back to normal as it was, so I can post a good picture.

 

[colorex]

@Klonas:

No the weather in Germany is a little weird at the moment.

I initially wanted to but my Dad confiscated my mobile and internet access for a stupid reason. I only get to go on for important school stuff and not for Flite Test etc. but as you can see I am writing.

Just don´t wonder now if I don´t post as much as usual. I hope everything goes back to normal as it was, so I can post a good picture.

Same as me sometimes... find friends with internet access and visit them often

 

[ananas1301]

OKAY guys,

I got the Tricopter pretty much flying right now and on dead calm days I can fly circles and stuff but always start getting into some minor trouble as soon as it faces me or something like that, where the controls kinda get messed up. However, I alreade did some videos with my camera on the Tricopter, so I did a pretty much similar mount like David W. did his but all I had at that moment was 3mm thick balse, so I cut two sheets at the size 19x4cm and glued them together with some CA and sanded it (balsa is soooo easy to sand down with sandpaper for anyone who didn´t know that)
I got some on board video footage which was pretty high (at least the highest I managed to go for) but as many of you probably already know as soon as the object gets further away from you it gets REALLY hard to determine its position and therefore hold it in place. Also the higher I got the more shaky it all got, because you can´t see that much. I guess FPV would eliminate that problem. The camera did pretty decent shots with I about 95% of the vibrations gone, so I am pretty pleased with that.

Now the curriculum in Germany right now wants all students to make some kind of investigation (like the Extended Essay for the IB but not that long and detailed but still for the same manner and stuff) and because I am attending my course at Higher Physics, I thought it would be kinda cool to make one about something related to my Tricopter, as I have the oppurtinity which I believe not many others have to do that.
I took my Tricopter with me to school to show my teacher what this all roughly is about and to get a vague idea of what I could do with it. Fact is that I need to make some kind of investigation or experiment.

We both agreed that we wanted to get some weights attached to the Tricopter and then examine the current as we have a relation between the two. Or we could calculate something with its efficiency. Thirdly I might do something with the acceleration and how that varies with the attached weights.
Now or all three I would need to somehow measure the live current and then later on graph that. Nothing else then a Data logger could do that job.

I knew the Eagle Tree loggers are pretty good and because I´ll need one for FPV (I can connect that with the eagle tree OSD Pro and have live battery voltage etc. on my display, also I can add GPS, Temperature etc. all on it) anyway I kindly persuaded my parents that I could get one and they pay for it, as I don´t have the money right now. (spent it all on my Tricopter )
I thought that this logger would be the best. The Eagle Tree Data Logger V4 100A no smaller versions available right now.
http://eagletreesystems.com/micropower/micro.htm

It just came into my mind that yo guys as creative as you always are, could give me some ideas or just help me out when I run into trouble.
Also does anyone have some personal experience with eagle tree´s products?!
How would you carry out the experiment.


Just as a sidenote: I am allowed to seek help from anyone who wants for this project but the teacher himself and the essay about it has to be written by me. So don´t think I am using you "illegaly".

 

[ananas1301]

I have that feeling that I write too much...

 

[Manfet]

Sry can't answer your question. I have no knowledge about OSD and Logs right now.
But nice work with your tri. Mine crashed on the first flight.

 

[ananas1301]

Thanks Manfet

This is some onboard footage of the Tricopter I made yesterday and a couple of weeks ago.

Hope you like it:

 

[Burg]

Very nive footage anas ! Too bad for the crash .. but you can fix that I'm sure ;-)

 

[ananas1301]

Very nive footage anas ! Too bad for the crash .. but you can fix that I'm sure ;-)

It is mostly fixed already. I replaced the arm etc. and did my best with the motor and juuust ordered the props. I am getting 13 props they shall hopefully last for a longer time now

 

[voipmonkey]

sorry to hear about your crash anas cant wait to get mine finished. Not even flown yet and thinking of changing the frame, not happy with the spacing of the arms but will get the thing done i am hoping this week and will up my log

 

[ananas1301]

You seem to be a perfectionist Only doing things RIGHT

I´ll be looking for your vlog!

EDIT:

Okay! Today (tuesday ) I got the new props and guess whose Tricopter is back in air.

The funny thing is that the front left motor is mounted on a slightly twisted arm so that my servodriven back arm, doesn´t have to go too far the right on its own anymore.
I guess it wouldn´t make any difference in flight characteristics.
The bend on the vertical gyro didn´t seem to have affected its function, so I am lucky on that