Tricopter Re-Build and New Filming Style

So after a few crashes (see my waterfall 'trip' at the end) my tricopter was a bit beat up, and the camera tray had gotten completely bent and was introducing some vibrations, so I set about re-building it from the ground up!

I got some new motors to replace the faithful DT750's, I went with SunnySky 2212-13 980Kv motors in the end, as they got good reviews and weren't too expensive. They are really nice and smooth, and have a bit of extra power over the 750's as well.

I also wanted to try something a little different for the camera tray, so got hold of some wire rope and some electrical block connectors and came up with this -

It seems to work pretty well, and is nice and solid but has a bit of flex as well. I'm currently using a mobius camera as flight and recording camera, which is pretty light so it still gets a bit of jello at certain points, but overall its pretty good! I have a GoPro on the way as I am not completely happy with the mobius, but thats another story.

Since I would be FPV'ing the tricopter I didn't want to have to buy a new VTx, so I set about making a modular connector for the transmitter so I could easily hot-swap it between aircraft. I came up with the following using a balance connector -

This has an LC filter which filters the supply from the balance connector of the flight battery, and also has a header for Video signal input from the mobius! Using a balance plug I wired the power and video cables from the Vtx to it, so I just plug in and have power and video! I made a few so changing VTx to another airframe is really simple!

Heat shrink added and mounted in my falcon. Balance lead from the battery plugs into the right hand socket.

With this done it was just down to mounting everything onto the frame. I am using a new KK2.1 board, flashed with the Stevis firmware (found here - http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2061620). Simon K flashed 20A ESC's and FRSky 8 channel Rx.

I also got some LED light strips for orientation.

Anyway, enough chat, to the video -

I'm pretty happy really, it flies well after some tuning, there are still some small vibrations there but hopefully once I get my gopro they will disappear with the added weight on the camera tray. The KK2.1 took a bit of playing to get working well, but I notice there are newer firmware versions available now so will need to try and give them a go as well.

Also gave a bit more thought to the video and tried to make it a bit more cinematic, hope you like! I used a DIY camera slider I built for the initial shots, it works quite well! Mk2 will be motorised! :)