[GAntonjo]

@cenko: The ArduCopter pages do have quite a lot of information regarding the tuning of the APM in different modes:

Acro Mode Tuning. Take a note on the ACRO_TRAINER parameter.

General tuning guide. Take a note on

Normally it’s best to start by tuning the Rate Roll/Pitch P in Stabilize mode then move onto tuning altitude hold in AltHold mode, then Loiter (which often needs no tuning) and finally the waypoint navigation performance in Auto mode.

Personally I have not come to the flying skills of Acro Mode, thus I ahve not done any tuning of related parameters. From what I read though, there are no special PID settings for Acro Mode.

[GAntonjo]

Thanks @Terje 😀
Trying to learn from the experts, you know 😉 If I end up with something awesome while learning, I will for sure share it back.

[GAntonjo]

I was just fooling around with your winter legs 😉

[GAntonjo]

@2ma. Ok, then it was just the web page that got me confused when stating “Fusion 360 Ultimate – WIN 32/64 – EN”. Mine got installed, but I run 64 bit Windows 7 😉

[GAntonjo]

I have tested the Autodesk Fusion 360 Ultimate today, but did not find any way to edit the imported STL files. When trying to convert the STL to BRep, the operation was cancelled due to too many facets. So, for redesigning/modifying STL files, I cannot see that Autodesk Fusion 360 Ultimate is the correct tool. Any options/hints?

By the way @2ma, from wat I could tell, the Windows version is for both 32 and 64 bit.

[GAntonjo]

@David! Great job.

The only thing I noticed when assembling my power distribution board is that it feels strange to place the 2 small + and 2 small – solder pads where you placed them in the front. As they are placed now, they are “covered” by the ESC cables to each arm. In a worst case scenario the – cables to the ESCs could short with and cable soldered to the center + pads.
Would it be an idea to move them e.g. to front and bac of the ESC solder pads? In order to do that and still have room for the front spacer, you might have to pull the separation between + and – a little further back.

[GAntonjo]

I have now rebuilt my tricopter. 2 evenings, in between being a family guy, was what I needed. Took a little longer than needed because I found the plates holding the camera tray to the frame had broken (surprise?-). Since I had no spares, I had to make new from some plywood I had laying around.

Total loss of weight 60g due to less cable mess 🙂

I must say I really like the distribution board, the only cables I had problem getting hot enough was the ones from the APM Power Module due to their size.

So, to my solution. Since I am using the HK Pilot Mega 2.7 with its power module, I have always faced problems on how to nicely mount the power module. It has quite thick cables, inlet at one side an outlet at the other. Before receiving the new distribution board I had resoldered the power module so that ground out exits at the same side as battery enters. This ground cable I soldered to the – pad at the back of the new distribution board. On + out side of the I connected a female XT60 plug between the new distribution board + pad and the APM power module. This connect to a corresponding male XT60 plug with a loop cable. This serves as a circuit breaker when powering on the APM. With the loop XT60 plug removed, I can connect the battery to the input of the APM power module and thus power on the flight controller without risk of arming the motors. After having checked that GPS, compass and all other looks OK via the telemetry link to my Android phone, I can connect the loop plug and thus enable the power to the new distribution board, and thus enable power to the ESCs and motors (and LED strips).

For the LED strips I used some spare servo cables that I soldered to the LED strips, one cable per arm on the tricopter. Then I twisted togheter all 3 + wires and soldered them together with the + to the back ESC. The 3 ground wires I twisted together and soldered together with the – to the back ESC. The other two ESCs I soldered to the front of the new distribution board as indicated by David.

As suggested by some here, I drilled a 10 mm hole in the top plate (without destroying the signature of David 😉 ) in order to let the servo cables exit nicely up to the APM. This way the cables exit betweein the APM and the RC receiver.

Finally, in order to have space for the canopy and at the same time a place where to mount the GPS/Compass pole, I made a new front spacer out of some scrap plastic plates they had laying around at work.

Attachments:

1. 

   TricopterV3-Front_before_rebuild.jpg
   

2. 

   TricopterV3-left_back_before_rebuild.jpg
   

3. 

   TricopterV3-right_back_before_rebuild.jpg
   

4. 

   TricopterV3-front_after_rebuild.jpg
   

5. 

   TricopterV3-left_back_after_rebuild_unarmed_esc.jpg
   

6. 

   TricopterV3-left_back_after_rebuild_armed_esc.jpg
   

7. 

   TricopterV3-right_motor_and_esc.jpg
   

8. 

   TricopterV3-Tail_motor_and_esc.jpg
   

9. 

   TricopterV3-front_spacer_with_GPS_pole.jpg
   

10. 

    TricopterV3-APM_connected.jpg
    

[GAntonjo]

Hurray!!! I’m a chosen one too 😉 Thank you very much, David!

I got my free package delivered on my desk at work after lunch today. Nice surprise 😀

After studying the circuit layout I had one concern, though… Since the bottom of the board is carrying the ground and the top is carrying +, I see a possibility for a shortage through 3 of the screws on the back of the board. However, when looking closely on the underside of the board, I now see that the copper seems to be broken around the screw holes. I hope this is correctly taken into account so we don’t see a potential 4S/35C (i.e. 16.8V/100A++) short around the screw holes;-) I will measure this before rebuilding my tricopter just to be sure.

[GAntonjo]

Today I had a new try, this time I enabled the external compass again. I successfully ran a compass calibration, but did not run any compass_mot calibration. Out on the field it was quite windy, so I was not sure whether or not to try GPS/Compass enabled modes. After some minutes seeing that the compass did not change from the actual heading, I felt safe for a Loiter test. VOILA! the Tricopter stayed at the position where I enabled Loiter Mode. A little bit of oscillation around the point could be seen, but then again, the winds where quite gusty. Compared to the internal compass, the external compass now behaves much better (as expected). I’m not sure what caused the previous problems with my external compass, but I guess it was due to wrong declination settings.

Now I only need a really calm day to be able to tune the PIDs so they fit my tricopter.

PS: I met two retired men at the field – brothers with a DJI quad each. They where impressed by the way the tricopter flew;-)

[GAntonjo]

Good move!
At the same time, try to indicate if it is a problem, and whether it is solved, a tip for other or just a duscussion etc.

I would also like the tags to be corrected/unified, so all topics related to e.g. Naze32 (and clones) or APM (and clones) are found by tags. Multiple tags are separated by comma, so one topic may have many relevant tags.

[GAntonjo]

Terje: No, I have unfortunately not been able to test my tricopter with a gimbal. I will see if I can have an ex-colleague print your MotorPixie for me one day;-) Neither do I own an action camera, thus I have limited possibilities to grab video (I did put a battery powered RaspberryPi B+ with Cam on the tray once, but it did not handle fast changes to the picture very well :-P). I borrowed a GoPro 3+ Black from a friend one day, but I have not edited the video yet. There of course I have all movements of the tricopter in the video, due to not having any gimbal at all.

Looking at the video now, I believe that a 3-axis gimbal that is able to filter out yaw oscilations +/- 5 degrees would add quality to the tricopter as a video shooting platform. It would take away any unintetional yaw caused by winds, I guess. I’ll see tomorrow if I can upload my GoPro test video.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[GAntonjo]

Terje: Have you ever thought of making a 3-axis version of the MotorPixie gimbal? I was thinking that it should be possible to disconnect the roll arm from the roll motor and rotate it 90 degrees upwards. Then create a new slightly longer arm going up from the roll motor and then attach a new yaw motor to the “old” roll arm.
Just an idea that could be used to smooth out the yaw movements of the tricopter. Due to the position of the gimbal the yaw of the gimbal should be limited to certain degrees in the gimbal controller.

That said, another solution is to make sure the yaw of the tricopter is smooth when filming. We could of course program some Yaw PIDs/parameters that limit the maximum yaw degrees/second for the tricopter. Depending of which flight controller we use, this may or may not be programmed to one flight mode, leaving other flight modes more agile.

Another idea for your great gimbal design would be to make two horizontal holes through the roll motor mount so that zip ties could be used as an alternative to screws. Easier to just cut off the tricopter and could serve as an extra safety for not breaking the gimbal.

[GAntonjo]

Oups, sorry. Did not remember the link in the start of this thread.
Well, they say a good things cannot be repeated to often 😉

[GAntonjo]

Even if many of you are experienced with the Naze32, here you have a video from FliteTest where they go through the setup of the board.

[GAntonjo]

Just found a new video on FliteTest that explains some theory around the dihedral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1GWtlRk45Q#t=1002.

[Author]

Posts