Home Forums Everything about the Mini Tricopter Upgrading the Mini Tri

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  • #29505
    norwenkel
    Participant

    I would like to upgrade my Mini Tri with the new F3 based Board and the new Servo. Do I just need to order the board or do I need a new spacer or other accessories?

    Thanks for your help

    Norbert

    #29511
    Terje
    Moderator

    If you don’t have the injection molded nose spacer, you need that too. Would recommend getting the carbon bottom plate as well 🙂

    -If you want the new servo (instead of soldering a feedback wire your self) you need to get that too of course!

    #29513
    norwenkel
    Participant

    Thanks a lot. Order done 🙂

    Happy flying

    Norbert

    #29802
    loki
    Participant

    I just received my new f3 board and the new servo. Wow! I am really intimidated by the apparent complexity of the board and as a consequence I need more clarification on the connections between a) the receiver which is an orange 720xv2 cppm, b)a mini osd, c) a 10 volt camera and transmitter and d) a future gps. I may just need pointing in the correct direction if you can reference a site with good pin mapping that explains more about what the connections are to be used for. Even simple things like where the battery connection goes? How to get 5V to the receiver? Can I and where do I get 10v for the camera and transmitter if I am using the suggested 4 cell battery?

    I realize I am asking for a lot but I’D rather take some time and make sure I fully understand the neat board than ruin it. Thanks Loki

    #29804
    swissfreek
    Participant

    If you go to the product page for the board, @david has a few good pictures with labels for the pins.

    a) your OrangeRX will plug from the BND/PPM pin on the receiver to the PPM pins labeled on the board (and in the pictures). Because the OrangeRX recievers share the bind and PPM pins (same with SBUS for that version), you will need to connect that cable from PPM on the board to any other pin EXCEPT the PPM pins on the receiver so that you can put the bind plug on the correct pin. All you need that for is to bind the receiver (which requires power to the receiver), once that’s done, reconnect it PPM to PPM. Once your receiver is bound, in the CleanFlight settings you can follow @david’s video except select PPM in the configuration tab (instead of SERIAL_RX like he does).

    b) OSDs will connect to one of the UART ports. You can pick #1, #2, or #3 since you aren’t using a serial receiver, it’s your choice. TX on the board goes to RX on the OSD and vice versa. YouTube is your friend on how to set up your exact OSD with CleanFlight.

    c) there is no 10v output option on the board (that’s a pretty uncommon voltage and it’s surprising that your gear needs exactly that. Usually it’s a range, like 5-20v or 6-12v or whatever. I’d recommend checking the specs on your gear, I suspect if it maxes out at 10v, it goes at least down to 6v, probably even 5v. If it doesn’t, and really needs 10v, then you’ll have to get a voltage regulator that puts out 10v, which would almost certainly mean an adjustable one because that’s such an uncommon output voltage. If you can run your gear off 5v, you can tap off any of the 5v pins. It’s also very likely that your VTX will take a relatively high voltage in (at least 4S) and output 5v to run the camera. In that case hook the VTX up to any of the big pads or the “raw” battery voltage pins, and then connect the camera to the VTX for power. Check the documentation. Getting the OSD in between may make this more complicated, but not impossible.

    d) same as OSD. Will run off a UART. YouTube.

    You can connect the battery to any of the big + and – pads, but the usual method is to use the pads that are all the way at the back of the frame, on either side of the tail boom. This will put your battery lead in a good position to hang down to your battery tray. Solder this AFTER you solder on the tail boom so that it dangles underneath the tail, as the bottom of the board is facing up when you are soldering on the wires.

    Your receiver will get its 5v from the 5v pin on the PPM connection.

    #29822
    loki
    Participant

    Heartfelt thanks. I appreciate your reply and now I can proceed with confidence.

    The 10v I referred to for the camera/transmitter voltage should have been the voltage supplied by the three cell power supply. The camera I am using is the one David listed suggested in his suggested list of parts for the mini tri. I’ll check my range of allowable transmitter voltages to make sure that a 4 cell power supply is ok. For convenience, would you recommend a good place to pick up the camera/trans power.

    #29826
    swissfreek
    Participant

    That depends on where you intend to mount them. David has provided through-hole pins on the board that provide battery voltage. You could take power from there on the outside of the frame and it would be protected inside the doghouse. I would say that’s probably the easiest, and David set it up just for that.

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