What would a RCExplorer mini tricopter look like?

[Terje]

Hi Chris, I use a slightly modified version of the original frame. I just made it 10mm wider at the front to allow me to fit a BEC in the nose, and 20mm longer so the rear mounting screws don’t interfere with the KK2 mini board mounting (for perfect placement of the IMU in the center of gravity – don’t know how much that matters though?). I have attached a PDF showing the layout. I just print it 100% scale and glue the paper to a 3mm piece of plywood and cut it with a coping saw.

Regarding making the frame bigger to fit ESCs between the two plates – Rather than making the body hollow, why not just adding an extra plate with standoffs and mount the ESC in between? The extra plate wouldn’t have to be solid, as it would only have to carry the receiver and KK2 board?

Attachments:

1. Mini-tricopter-frame.pdf

[Chris7485]

Hi Terje, thanks for adding the .pdf file!
You are right, why not adding a extra plate with standoffs… would be the easiest way. But i wanna go as lite and compact as possible and the idea was to put a optional FPV cover on to the ready to fly MiniTri.
This cover should just carry the FPV camera and the transmitter. Plug in to your balancer cable, close the cover and you are good to go.
Also I’m working on a base plate with integrated distribution board and the foldable arms should have sliding contact, so no more braking wires by folding. But don’t know if it will work. Ordered some material to test.

[Robert C]

Just a thought;

On a mini Tri the holes for the folding screw could be closer towards the end of the boom, (motors are lighter and closer to the center so it doesn’t have to be so tight to keep it from folding).
That way the wires don’t have to move so much which will make it much more robust.

[Terje]

You are absolutely right 🙂 I have placed the holes 15mm from the end instead of the standard 18mm – makes quite a difference. Most significant is the 10mm hole in the middle of the frame though, makes a ton of difference to the way the wires are routed! When using a G10 or carbon frame, you’d have to use a rubber bushing to protect the wires though. I don’t know if that can be done on a full size frame also.

[Terje]

After spending hours doing my third power distribution harness I begin to see the real allure of an integrated power distribution board…
The outputs are:
3x 2mm bullet connectors for the ESCs (taken from the Afro 20A slims)
1x BEC to 2 outputs (GoPro + Flip32+)
3x 12v (Voltage metering on Flip32+, LED on battery tray, FPV)

Attachments:

1. 

   DSC0531.jpg
   

[coolblaze19]

hey terje since i had a heck of a time routing the wires through the booms i was thinking that you could use a smaller gauge wire for the mini because the motors are drawing less current(correct me if im wrong) making wiring sooooo much faster.

[Terje]

The setup:

3x Multistar Elite 2204-2300KV
3X Afro 20A slim ESCs
Flip32+ flight controller
5v/3A BEC
18AWG wire
2mm bullet connectors (from the Afro ESCs)
FrSky X8R receiver with 25 cm antennae
TGY-210MH Servo
LED lighting strips (3×9 LEDs soldered directly to the ESCs before heat shrink and water proofing) + 2×12 LEDs on the battery tray
Turnigy nano-tech 1400mah 3S 40~80C Lipo Pack

Hovers at 50% throttle
Weight: 546g w/o FPV gear (FPV will add 60g)

The Flip32+ is acting up, have only hovered for seconds in my small living room this evening. Seems the gyro/accelerometer is faulty. Mote to come 🙂

Attachments:

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   DSC0565.jpg
   

[Terje]

And Gemfan 6×3 props
The UBEC

Frame, battery tray, canopy, legs, motor mounts, Flip32+ enclosure, tilt mechanism etc are custom made 😉

Arms are 180mm long, hinged at 15mm. Making the wheelbase about 320mm. I guess you could go as low as 160mm with the original frame (which is a nice divider of 1000mm or 325mm for that matter :-))

– Still walks like a duck though!

[Terje]

Yes it does fly! 😀

RCExplorer V3 inspired mini tricopter

[Terje]

Experienced some vortex of dead on rapid decent because of the props being so close together. Broke the custom tail landing leg (some CA fixed it right away) and a hobbyking boom on a hard landing. Decided to take it to the next level and cut the booms to 160mm (to later be able to replace them with RCExplorer booms cut in half). The wheelbase is now 295mm. Still no clue how to fit PFV and still keep the design clean?!?

Some footage as soon as the weather clears up (need close to zero wind to do a Naze autotune on the Flip32+ board)

[2ma]

You should try to put the FPV Tx flat on te frame, pointing to the tail and make a little hole just for the antenna 🙂 I hope it will not touch the tail’s propeller. If so you can just rotate te Tx by 90° and make the hole on one side of you canopy 🙂

[RCExplorer – David]

Awesome Job Terje! Looks great 😀

[Terje]

Thanks David 🙂 Looking forward to seeing your mini tricopter design, hope you get some play time soon! That you would spend on work… that didn’t make much sense?

[Terje]

The “Let’s cut the booms in half” version: RCExplorer V3 inspired Tricopter mini 295

Cleanflight autotune on mini tricopter? Did not get it to work!

[Terje]

Skipped “autotune” and upgraded to PID controller 2, “Baseflight” by typing the following in the CLI tab: set pid_controller = 2

Decreased the YAW Proportional (P) to 1.5, the Derivative (D) to 10 and increased the YAW rate to 0.25 to have full movement on the YAW axis. Flyable but still needs tweaking. Please remember these settings are for the mini with 295mm wheelbase and 2204 2300Kv motors.

Attachments:

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   yaw.png
   

[Author]

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