[LeoTheHuman]

Tricopter Tilt Mechanism

This one is currently included in the kit

Tricopter V4 [No longer sold as kit]

[LeoTheHuman]

My suggestion would be to avoid linear BEC on 3S+, as it actually dissipates more power as heat than outputs. If you don’t mind spending some extra money, doubling up a SBEC with low dropout linear voltage regulator or a filter will give you perfect output and will not overheat. Grounded tin foil can be a good RF noise isolation around the SBEC if you care about that too much. (:

[LeoTheHuman]

You can give inputs on the sticks that will move it to the other side. I wouldn’t expect any multicopter to go perfectly vertical on takeoff.

[LeoTheHuman]

Looks great! Take a video of the flight if you can!

[LeoTheHuman]

@agent-cal I don’t think encouraging such kind of behavior (like flying over houses for the first time and risking losing LOS) is a good idea. That is only a good story if you also tell that you have later realized how stupid and dangerous that idea was and you should have never done that, but emotions and the urge to fly for the first time clouded your judgement. (:

[LeoTheHuman]

I would not consider the ESC placement the biggest problem here. From what you described, it might have been damaged anyway. For controlled crashes you want your ESCs in the direction you’re not usually flying with the highest speed and tricopters don’t usually fly down too fast, because they can’t while the props are still spinning.
Unprotected wires going through the boom and around sharp edges are definitely a problem, which is why it would be wise to apply some hot glue or epoxy to the ends of the booms when the wiring is done.
On the other hand, I can’t agree that the “sipties” should be strengthened, because if they don’t break, something else will. They absorb a lot of energy while breaking and that helps to save other stuff.

[LeoTheHuman]

I’m using the stock cleanflight setup with lowered P and increased D for pitch and roll. Haven’t done any yaw adjustments and I don’t see any yaw oscillation. Had these before, when I was using too heavy battery too far back. Also had these when my servo was not centered right. You might want to check these things first if you have not done that already. Hope it helps. But I would also like to see the updates from David. (:

[LeoTheHuman]

Problem with autolevel is that it’s much harder to learn flying without it if you have flown with it. It’s much easier to start without it, than learning to abandon it. It’s not harder to fly without autolevel, it’s just very-very different skill.
I don’t really like how they teach you to take off. That will probably lead to a lot of crashes for people who can’t hover yet. I would suggest a different tactics. Find a place where you can slide a little bit, but the surface will resist it slightly. That might be short grass or just dirt (not too dry, though). Start adding a bit of throttle at a time. Just remember to level the thing after at least one landing gear is off the ground and don’t add more power while it’s not level. If at least one landing gear is still on the ground after leveling, add a tiny bit more power and level again. If not, congratulations, you took off without autolevel and your precious machine is still in one piece and close to the ground in stable hover. This is how they usually teach you to fly a real helicopter. (: Later, when you learn to level from any orientation in the sky, you’ll be able to take off just adding a lot of throttle from the start, but you shouldn’t learn this way if you don’t want to crash a few times. The height you’re flying at should feel comfortable to cut the throttle right away and you can’t guarantee that if you jumpstart knowing nothing about the flight characteristics of your craft.

[LeoTheHuman]

If the BECs in the ESCs are even a little bit different, one will be loaded much more than the other one (and we’re talking about linear BECs here, switching will just freak out if their outputs are connected to the same rail). Also, on 4S you’re wasting as heat at least twice the power you’re actually using on 5V. Loading one ESC more than the other will mean it will heat up more and will give different performance (up to no performance if overheated) and Afro BECs are not rated for 4S and a significant load (remember, they are linear). I would suggest getting a separate switching UBEC for your 5V supply and feed everything that needs +5V from it. Unfortunately, BEC provided with the PDB is also linear and will most likely overheat way before your servo’s current demand. See here: http://rcexplorer.se/forums/topic/power-distribution-frame-heating-up-alot-under-the-lm2940-5/
I would suggest getting one of the small switching BECs like this one:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251610080014, or this one: https://www.pololu.com/product/2831

[LeoTheHuman]

What do you mean by “Afro Slim 20Amp (Modified)”?

[LeoTheHuman]

It is in cleanflight for a while already.

[LeoTheHuman]

Are you taking off in auto-level or heading hold mode? Can you try taking off in attitude mode, correcting for the spin? Keep it low and don’t add throttle until you feel it’s going straight up. If you can lift it off with corrective stick inputs, it will be software that mess things up and you will need to check the settings. If it spins anyway, we’ll take a look at your wiring. (:

[LeoTheHuman]

Yeah, sounds like bad bearings on cheap motors. (:

[LeoTheHuman]

I had that problem with the heavy battery too far back. With a completely different board.

[LeoTheHuman]

You can definitely power it with one ESC, but you would want an ESC with its BEC current limit more than the stall current of the servo. It does actually make the setup cleaner. But there’s one more option. I didn’t have the BEC on the ESC, so I only used the ESCs ground connection for the servo (ESC has a ground wire from the battery, and it’s not opto-isolated) and only needed to bring one servo lead (3 wires) to the tail: +5V and signal for the servo and signal for the ESC.

[Author]

Posts