Trinom's tricopter

[Trinom]

Well, that's the reason why I'm going to buy that small helicopter after next payday. I hope it should be the best for me, because I will be able to train handling at home with real flying machine, not only on the screen, where it dissappears in few seconds (I'm using two 15" LCD displays, because I don't have enough space for big one). Anyway, I'm getting better even with this equipment :-D

I'm using RC DeskPilot for FPV and ClearSky RC for normal flight training. I don't use PhoenixRC, because I don't have that damn cable.

 

[Trinom]

Today, it was dead calm, so I decided to bring my tricopter outside and learn. I was quite successful, only problem was smooth landing. Every time I tried to land, it fell down like a stone. After few landings the landing gear (or landing sticks) was gone, so I had to land on battery. Not a big problem, because I obviously hit the ground with one of the arms first :black_eyed:.

When I wanted to do the last take off, it took off, and flew far away left. I tried to stop it. I was partialy successful, but just after stabilizing I hit the stone and tricopter hardly hit the ground. Battery went out, KKboard too, battery support is in pieces and KKboard box has a dent. So nothing major, just few minute repair with zip ties, hot glue, electrical tape and hand saw.

Few minutes earlier I tried to attach a car DVR to tricopter and make some air footage. Unfortunately when I attached it I landed twice hardly and camcorder fell off and turned off. As you can imagine, camcorder survived, but nothing has been saved, so I don't have any footage .

And finally, the LED strips arrived, so I attached them to the arms. Front arms have warm white strips on the bottom and the rear arm has red strips on the bottom and on the sides.

Total power consumption is 6W (0,5A at 12V). The led strips will be controlled separately using 5th channel. To be continued. Stay tuned :black_eyed:.

 

[ananas1301]

Looking great Trinom!

I loooove your lights! I have a white one on by back arm and that is all. I guess I should add to pieces of green and red on the front but I don´t want to draw that much wattage from the battery just for lights... But your lights look crazyyy

BTW: which size props are you using?!

 

[Trinom]

I'm using 1047 props. Counter rotating set is on the way. And I would like to try a 1147 later with more equipment.

 

[Trinom]

Hi guys. I'm thinking about some better control unit which should be easier to control. I've found this Multiwii control unit. I hope it will be much easier to control.


What do you think? Do someone have some experience with this control unit? Do you recomend it for me or not?

 

[ananas1301]

I don´t have any experience with it, but I think I´ll switch to Multi wii as well.

Several reasons:

-Multiwii is veeeery open! What I mean with this is that you can always add sensors to it or leave away, and configure the board to your linkings

-aerial photography: Multiwii provided with a WMP (Wii Motion Plus Gyroscopes) and NK (the accelerometers from the NunChuck controller) together can already make a system, that will have auto leveing funktion. For example that will mean I can fly as high up as I can see the Tri, press one of the switches that will make the board use the accelerometers and then the Tricopter will automatically be leveled with the horizon!!! That is a great function, because now you can fly much higher as you don´t have to know the actual position of the multicopter.

-also aerial photography. You can connect your processers to two servos for a camera gimbal system. So if you fly forward and your Multicopter leans forward the servos will counteract this and keep the camera leveled to the horizon on its own.

there are many more things I could list but this is what you can do with this

 

[Trinom]

As you can see, this control unit has all those sensors already included. And have even some more.
Here is a list of sensors: gyros, accelerometers, magnetometers (compass) and barometer. If you want to buy the sensors and make everything by yourself, you will see, that this version isn't much more expensive, or may be even cheaper. I calculated the price of this board and just the sensors are half of the price. Those guys can't even profit on selling those boards, or maybe just few dollars on each, which is nothing compared to the time spent by developping and testing.

PS: Even DJI Naza doesn't have so much sensors and costs over two times more (about $200).

 

[ananas1301]

Even better! The Multiwii board in general is pretty awesome!

 

[voipmonkey]

I am doing the DIY thing at the moment with a flyduino shield Arduino Pro Mini Clone WMP and a original NK (Kids still not missed it yet). all bits have finally arrived from various places so just need to get it all soldered together and then we might have a little more fun . Buying the parts separate is a bit of mine field though, as there are many different versions of WMP and NK. The WMP I have I cant wire the NK to it i have to wire straight to pro mini due to the traces on the board not being the same but hey ho small price to pay I guess. just the WMP for starters though and see how we get on from there. Hey I do like a challenge !!

 

[Burg]

Hi guys. I'm thinking about some better control unit which should be easier to control. I've found this (link) I hope it will be much easier to control. What do you think? Do someone have some experience with this control unit? Do you recomend it for me or not?

I have this one ..
Finally got it up and running yesterday.
Must say that although the software is quite good, I'm not impressed...
It can't keep up with my Flycam Black Board, not by far.

You can't set the esc's endpoints with the board.
You must do that manually with each esc and that sucks when you have cut off all red and black wires (!)

With the software you can tweek a lot but this is complicated.
So many settings (!) and it keeps the fun out of flying when you need to hook up the board to pc every time.

I therefore also have the LCD to programm it but this doesnt work.
More people have this problem I noticed.

ACC and BAR aren't working, at least, I notice no differences.
And yes, I connected and programmed them properly

For sure I could get all settings right, but this will take ages.

I'm now studying the rcgroups website:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1551599
But I am very close to ditch this board.

My answer to your question : no, I am not recommending it
(I ordered a second Flycam Black Board)
Mark.

 

[Trinom]

It's almost one year from my last post, so I'm back. I've finally bought another FC board. It's the Rabbit FC, which is pretty high level. It has more features, than Naza and costs about half. I've bought the version with GPS, so it's fully loaded.
I'm really impressed with this board capabilities. With these bunch of sensors flying is so much easier, even I was able to control it without any major problems. I must say, GOOD JOB, GUYS, THIS FC WORTH EVERY CENT! Also the "Jack'ed Rabbit" software is awsome (ways better, than the original one).

I've done couple mods to my tricopter since last year. First, it has new landing skid. Made of welding wire. It's light and very tough. It protects battery against impact during hard landing. Tested :black_eyed:

The second change is, that I have now modern 2.4 GHz radio (Flysky TH9x) compatible with FRSky system, which will be one of the next improvements.

And here is my TO DO list:
1) Make a light controller (modify the car version I've built couple days back)
2) Buy FPV gear
3) Buy FRsky module
4) Enjoy.

Until that I will learn flying on line of sight, which I think is also important for me.