Tricopter kit order update

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Tricopter V3 parts

Sorry to tell you guys but, I’ve run into a supply issue.

I got a bad batch of components from a manufacturer. I don’t want to send out inferior quality parts so I immediately ordered new ones from a different manufacturer. The parts were supposed to arrive last week but the manufacturer didn’t include the correct import documents and the shipment was sent back. Now the parts have the right documents and are on the way with the highest priority currier. The manufacturer has assured me that the new components will be here early next week. As soon as I get the parts I will work day and night to get the orders out.
I’m terrible sorry for the wait.
UPDATE:
I marked everything in the store as backordered. This is because I’m currently fulfilling all backorders and don’t want to give a false impression that any new orders will be processed quickly. Any order placed at this time won’t be shipped until the end of the week or beginning of next week. Once I’m completely caught up I will restore all items to be in stock.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
UPDATE 2:
I have just caught up with all orders! Now, I’ll just have to take some time to inventory how much I actually have left in stock (not too much…). Thank you all for your patience!

113 thoughts on “Tricopter kit order update”

  3. Hi David! Do you think you’ll have any new kits available to order before Xmas? I really want to get one from Santa!!!!
    Greetings from Greece! (we met at the hobbyking event in the UK in Elmset!!!)It’s really cool to see you in ROTOR DR1!!!!!

  5. Heya David I think we need a forum to discuss your awesomeness. Anyways, I wanted to point out that shaft of the sunnysky 2216 II 900kv motors touch the boom just enough to make them stiff and not free if you mount them as is. A simple fix is to add four .5mm washers between motor and first fiberglass motor plate plate. Works perfect like that.

  6. Hey David i ordered about a month ago and i know you have been busy, so no hard feelings. i understand the quality control problem and wondered when they will ship. Also will the plates have your signiture on them? Because of the weight i was wondering if you could add in a bonus like a set of props or an extra velcro strap at the very least. we had been good customers. thank you for this product i ordered it but quite frankly the price was too steep for this long a wait.

    • I don’t know about that, most good frames are 100 and up so I think there is a lot that you get for the money here. I have a cinetank that with adding an extra camera mount it came to 200 so I have to say the tricopter is awesome quality and very well priced.

      • Agreed… It’s a lot of frame for the price. And I don’t think the wait time should really come into the price… Remember this is a small operation not HobbyKing… I too also ordered nearly a month ago. It was clearly stated the item was on back-order at the time so as much as I want my frame asap, I can live with the wait knowing that I’ll receive a quality product and I’m supporting someone who’s give so much already to the multi-rotor community…

    • The last part will arrive tuesday. I’m prepping as much as I can before the last parts arrive so that I can send out the orders as soon as they do.
      Really sorry about the wait. Anyone that would like to cancel their order and get a refund, just email me. Again sorry about the wait.

      • Here I thought you took my money and bought more marshmallows. Too cold to fly outside now anyway. I was wondering where my frame was though. Thanks for the update.

      • No one wants to cancel we are all thankful that you are doing your best in quality control. Maybe adding a few more people to your team will help speed stuff up. Can you update us when things change? thanks

  7. Since I am running out of sub-standard booms (Hobbyking) FAST, I appreciate the quality control 🙂 Can(t) wait to try real booms on the frame 🙂

    Can you share any indication of how many kits you have sold? Just to get an idea of how big the community of RCExplorers is getting 🙂

  8. It’s great that you keep us updated like this David. I for one am quite happy to wait and fully understand the pressure you must feel right now.
    Keep up the great work dude.

    Dean

  9. I think it’s wonderful that you let us up to speed with your concerns with quality control, I don’t think anybody needs any freebies because your looking out for us like this. I, like Dynoprilla will wait happily for my kit to arrive.

    Les

  10. Thank you for the update.

    Waiting for a backordered item is hard, but finally getting it and finding out that it’s bad quality is worse!

    Don’t work too hard, we need you alive 🙂

    Keep up the good work and let us know about further delays or problems.

    Greetings and best wishes from Germany,
    Dom

  11. Hi David,

    Just a quick question, although the kits are unavailable at present, do you still have stock of the tilt mechanism and screw set ?
    Keep up the great work! Looking forward to the drone races on RD1 😉

    Cheers
    Fraser

  13. Hi David!
    Do you have problems with the carbon arms? It appears that one of mine is twisted and the motor does not sit aligned to the main board.
    I will try to take a picture to show you in details!

          • Thanks for that David,

            I will mention it when I make another order to you.
            It will happen sooner or later.

            If you can you come up with a good way to make a gimbal fit, I would be willing to pay for that.

            I saw a picture of a guy who had broken the arm just where the mount for the engine is.

            Perhaps you can come up with a design to use ty-wraps instead of the screws to secure the motors would be a good improvement.

  15. Hi David. I have just finished my kit and due to an error I made on setup, the Tricopter flipped and crashed. No props were broken but a couple of the landing gear legs were knocked off and the yaw mechanism broke. This particular crash would not have caused any damage on the old landing gear based yaw mechanism but on your new 3D printed piece that attaches to the motor, broke right along the narrow spot parallel to the screw that goes to the servo. I have ordered new parts in any case but I fixed the broken part with some Gorilla Glue to hold the pieces together. Then I cut small pieces of “cloth” from a wristband obtained during a visit to the local swimming pool. I put some CA on the outer contour of the yaw part, stuck on the “cloth” part. When dry, I put CA on the outside of the “cloth” as well. Send me an e-mail to send you pictures if this is not a clear description. I would suggest increasing the thickness in that area of the mechanism. You want the nylon ties to give away rather than the part to break. With the servo connected, there are 5 nylon ties holding it in place, making it quite strong.

      • I had the same break when I flipped it end over end and it hit on the tail motor. CA glued it and ordered a new one. It was a hard crash, but other than a prop, nothing else broke.Looked like your picture, too.

        • Same for me as well…

          Zip ties kept holding well, but the tilt mechanism is broken.
          It break in another spot, right along the screw, but same thing…

          Probably the thickness is more than enough, but if I look at the one in the video and also mine, which is now broke, the plastic is not consistent trough the whole part. In some spots only a small portion of the section (in the center of the part) is consistent, while in other spots looks as it was a “cold solder joint” between plastic layers…

          It looks like a printing issue, more than a design flaw…

          • Would you mind sharing a few pictures of the broken part? 3D printed parts look different inside because of the perimeter and infill part of the slicing process. I suspect that the parts that look “solid” are the infill part, and the “cold solder points” are the perimeter parts.

            I’ve made a bigger and heavier version of the mount, but would use it with care. If something has to break, I’d rather it be the tilt mechanism than the servo or motor. When slamming the tail of the tricopter straight down with the tail motor on a slight angle, there are tremendous forces acting on the part.

            If people keep providing feedback on which parts they keep breaking in crashes, David can estimate which parts he has to have stockpiled. Once the massive load of orders clears, David might be able to offer specific parts of the kit as spare parts. That way you would be able to order extra quantities of the parts that will break in a crash. Only time will tell 🙂

          • Sent 2 new top tilts today.
            This is due to bad filament, (causing skipping due to the filament being too thick for the Bowden tube) which lead to under extension and layer separation. A couple of other customers have had the same problem, which makes sense, if one print batch got affected (7 pieces).
            Terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

  16. Hello David,
    Just wanted to say thank you for the tri kit. Spent the last week putting it together and here is a quick picture of my first night flight. Amazing product and was worth every minute of wait. Thanks again and keep up the fantastic work.

  17. Hi David. I just sent you some pictures of the broken and repaired yaw part. It is loaded on the Tricopter and is flying very well. This is a very sweet kit.
    @Terje – that looks like some kind of nasty damage, way worse than mine which was effectively a flip on take-off of the first flight. Nothing else broke except nylon ties from the landing gear. I usually wait to load up FPV gear or camera gimbals until I prove the multi is flying properly.

      • Chrome and ie. I tried also from my tablet. if i make separate orders could you combine them? Ill get the tricopter and a tail mechanism so i believe i can only pay postage costs for the tri.
        Thank you for the reply
        Greetings from greece

        • Hold on for 1 or 2 days. I might know what’s wrong… I’m asking my webhosting service to disable varnish cashing. I can recreate the same thing as you if I’m not logged in and using an incognito window on chrome. Very strange. I thought I had solved it :/
          We’ll see what happens when the varnish cache is turned off, which should be tomorrow or the day after.
          Sorry about the inconvenience.

  20. Hi Dave,
    Quick question for you….
    I by mistake purchased the MS2216-11’s instead of the MT2216. I’m hoping I can push the MS series from 2-3LiPo to 4 cells.
    Your thoughts??????

  21. Received the 6 spare booms I ordered on November 28, today 🙂 All booms are perfectly straight and have a nice finish. David seems to have resolved any past issues with quality control or delayed shipping for that matter. Great work David!

    • Working on it! Been shipping like mad all week and hopefully I will be caught up after the weekend.
      If you ordered on 11/05/14 your order has been packaged but is waiting to get the shipping label printed.
      As soon as it is done you will receive and email 🙂

  26. Woohoo! Got shipment notification today! I ordered back on the 5th of November. It sucks waiting for things but when it’s a back ordered product, we can’t complain really. We definitely can’t demand free parts as we can easily cancel if we’re not happy. As others mentioned it’s great that you’re ensuring we do get the best parts and also taking care of those who may have an issue. I must apologize for the email with a status query last week when you had posted this update already. I only kept checking the tricopter page to see if it was in stock yet. None the less, thanks for your efforts, keep it up, and can’t wait to get my mitts on it!!

    Jon from Ireland.

    • Sorry to say that I’m currently on orders from november 14th. Realistically your order probably won’t ship out until next week i’m afraid. Is that alright or do you wish to cancel your order?

      • Damn! You have a lot to do, David. I have order: #7525 from around Nov. 1. That’s over 300 orders in a month and you only have one frame in your store. Nicely done. Don’t forget to relax and eat some peppargubbar with your coffee :p

        Have you tried to make a mini Tricopter yet? I’m going to try to make a mini Tri with EMAX 2204 2300KV motors with GF 6045 on a 3S battery. I’m hoping I have enough CF booms left to make a Y6 later, and if the mini Tri wont work I’ll just make two mini Y6.

        • The next natural step would be to release a “dead cat” conversion kit for the tricopter frame? Add new plates, a boom, esc and motor and reuse camera plate and vibration wires etc.? You could literally pull two of the booms of the tricopter and use them as-is 🙂

        • I haven’t had the time to try a mini version yet 🙂 I’m dying to though! Have the motors and everything sitting on the worktable, just waiting to be caught up on the orders. Would love to hear how yours fly as soon as you get it up

      • Heck no!!!! I am willing to wait I live in Nebraska and seeing that you got to witness winters in Ohio its not much different here. I am willing to wait. I am a Flite Test junkie as well you do nice work.
        Quit trying to be a movie star or you’ll have to move to Hollywood and no one will get cool stuff made by you 🙂

  28. My order is 7853. I think I’ll receive my order next year :/

    David maybe you can put at home page an order counter, so everybody can estimate when order will be received.

  30. Hi David, I see you still list all products as backordered and you have explained why. This gives potential new customers the impression that delivery times are unknown? You’d might consider just stating the estimated processing time of the items instead? Since this would be one variable shared across all items in your shop, the time would be easily updatable once implemented. I know implementing this is just more time out of your crazy busy schedule though.

    • I rather catch up on orders and mark the stuff as in stock again 🙂 Shouldn’t be too long now, I hope. I don’t want to disappoint anyone, so I rather be on the safe side. Especially now around christmas when people really want their stuff before the 24th.

  34. The hustle and bustle of everyday life and doing chores along with squeezing fpv flying in where I could- weather permitting now that winter is here- had me not even thinking about the tricopter kit. I was working on other builds and repairs. I was pleasantly surprised to see it in today’s mail.
    Now I do remember seeing the email that was sent, so it is not like I wasn’t notified, but I lost track.
    I am still looking for anyone else that has set up a Naze for this- I built one other tricopter with a naze and it was a bit tricky finding the tuning to keep it from yaw wobble.
    Running a set of 2216-1100 Lumeneir on 4S with 8in props- I will also fly 3S with 9in or 10in. It should be like butter.

    • It’s on my todo list to experiment a bit with the Naze. As soon as I’m caught up on orders I hope to get around to it. Will post settings as soon as I do. Does is waggle quickly back and forth or slowly?

  39. I have three Mystery A2212-15 930KV motors from a scratch from a scratch tricopter I made before that I was going to use how would the compare to the 900kV NTM 28-30S? Would it be better to just upgrade?

  42. Hi David,
    Keith here with order #7505 on 31 October. I’m strongly concerned that my order was lost, or possibly worse. Others around me have gotten theirs, and now I’m guessing it’s about 2-3week late. Can you please confirm.
    thanks

  43. I have just about finished up my version of David’s Tricopter V3 for my winter fpv therapy- this is a straightforward, clean lined Naze32 (full board) icy treetop skimmer for the gopro.
    Check pics here:
    http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu123/HiwaysBucket/triC_zps40502d05.jpg
    and here:
    [URL=http://s640.photobucket.com/user/HiwaysBucket/media/triB_zpsa1692675.jpg.html][IMG]http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu123/HiwaysBucket/triB_zpsa1692675.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
    I used the spare 5v leads from the BEC’s that weren’t used to the naze board and soldered some red led’s- the tail has a battery operated strobe that lights up the prop from underneath and is super bright. Waiting on the 4ch ez uhy rx and the 200mw 1.3 vtx and once installed this should be an AUW of 1100grams including the 3700 4S lipo. Motors are Lumenier 2216 1100kv’s and are some of the silkiest powerplants I ever spun a prop on. Graupner 8in eprops, and 9in eprops on 4S and HQ 10in on 3S. plastic case runcam with 2.8 lens. Custom covered and bombproofed (UG rated heatshrink with glue) for those wet landings in snowy areas. All wiring except battery lead covered in 550 paracord. Paint markers for the edges.

  44. Hi David,
    I got an email from you over a week ago that my order shipped but I still have not gotten one from Posten.se. Should it be fine or could something be wrong? My order is #7748.
    Thanks

  46. You Busy Swed !!
    We know your doing your best(as always). I just wanted to wish you and family a Merry Christmas. Oh yes, and come to Australia sometime next year would you….Cheers

  47. hey david i am having some problems with my tricopter i built it and hooked up the electronics. when i do the reciever test on the kk2 mini board everything is fine, but when i put any input in the motors and servo dont work can you help me? im using kk2 mini and eflite dxm2 reciever

    • You can if you use lower kV motors. If you plan on using the recommended electronics I do recommend using E-type props. Or at least get some stiff 9×4.7 props. The reason why I recommend the E type prop is that that the motors spins with a higher RPM than is recommended for slow fly props.

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