Trycopter buildFirst let me start off by saying I am not trying to take any design credit for this. All I did was take the work that others have done and adopted it for my own use.
Background:
This is my first attempt at building a multi rotor aircraft. This is why I call it my Trycopter as it was my first try. I have flown fixed wing R/C aircraft on and off for 10 or so years. I became interested in multi rotors by watching all of the great areal footage on Flite Test and wanted to experience FPV for myself. I started out with a Blade Nano QX halfheartedly expecting to not like it, given my previous experience with helli’s. (all disasters) I was surprised how easy it was to fly and decided I would build my own multi rotor FPV platform.
I really liked the H-quad design but it seemed to me that Tricopters were a bit more maneuverable and easier to keep orientation when flying line of sight. So I decided to merge the two in to what I call the Trycopter.
I found this picture on Rcexplorers web page that laid out the math involved in building a Tricopter (ie.. all motors evenly spaced, CG calculations and so on) I then took the H-quad plans and adapted to remove one of the rear motors. I then added a pivoting rear motor mount that I had ordered from Flite Test along with 2 standard straight motor mounts.
Oh yea and it needed lots of LEDs because I am in Alaska and this time of year we don’t have much daylight.
I chose to use the MultiWii 328p flight controller because the KK2 boards were on back order at the time. It was a steep learning curve for me as I have never dealt with flight controllers. One lesion I had to learn the hard way was when I connected the tilt servo to the incorrect spot on the board and subsequently let the smoke out of the servo. The addition of the Bluetooth module makes programing on the go a breeze no need to take the Lap top to the Field.
For the FPV gear it seemed to make more sense to me to have the TX underneath the airframe this way it would never be blocking the antenna.
So far I am pleasantly surprised with this copter I have had a dozen Line of sight flights with it and 4 FPV flights. I need to do something about the camera mount for the go pro as I am getting a lot of distortion I believe that is what they call Jell-O. I am open to any suggestions as I plan on building a Quad next for more stable aerial photography and FPV flying. Feel free to comment with questions I don’t know much but I might be able to give some more detail if needed.
Here is a link to my YouTube video of the Trycopter FPV
http://youtu.be/QPkv7aF89H4
build video
http://youtu.be/Dgcrh0XlDgg
Parts list:
Flight controller
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=27033
Bluetooth module
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=42845
Motors
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=6247
ESC
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=2164
Props
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=22453
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=22452
Motor mounts
http://shop.flitetest.com/multirotors/straight-motor-mount-13-370-pair/
http://shop.flitetest.com/multirotors/tilt-motor-mount-13-370/
FPV Gear
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=43057
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=27750
OSD
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=36801
