Tricopter Transformation

After designing and building a succesful H Quad, I decided to build a Tricopter just like David Windestal's one.

It was personally quite an interesting build, as to I had to find alternatives for the carbon fiber frame and other components. Some materials are quite difficult to find and expensive to ship to my lovely island of Anguilla.

The Tricopter is used  for FPV and Areal photo and video shoots also for a little speeding around. 

My frist choice of frame material was foam board. It was the easiest material for me to work with and to find in stores. Plywood is available in Anguilla, but the thinest available is 1/2 inch and only comes in large sheets.

However, I did some testing and tried to find ways to make the foam board strong and sturdy as a frame.

The foam board I used was not the regular dollar tree foam board, but a quite stiffer one with a smooth surface.

Drone frame painted all black 

When all the electronics were installed, The tricopter frame began to bend under the weight of the electronics. It flew , but landings made the frame buckle.

I took at plastic container cover , cut out the frames and sandwiched the foam board frames between two of them. I also did that for the tricopter mount later on. From that time on It has been stiff  and took some good beatings  and still standing strong.

Since those reinforcments to the frame, I have upgraded the frame with new electronics , servos and landing gears. Those changes came from learning from some crashes and  issues i've experieinced. 

With the crashes the tricopter have taken, there have only been once or twice a broken arm and broken props and usually repaired with in an hour or two. I had to never replace the foam board sandwiched plastic frame. Each Major/minor crash made me to think , how can I improve it each and every time. 

 Changed up the landing gear and added the new KK 2.15 board (with stevies Stevie's firmware) (the other kk2.15 LCD screen got destroyed in a crash)  and a metal gear servo for the tail. 

Skid style Landing Gears for the Tricopter. I decided that this was the best landing gear design for the Tricopter. 

 Sprayed up and ready to mount. There was not much difficulty in mounting it. It was designed to mount under the battery/ camera try to utilize the screws and nuts.

 Tricopter folded with new skids. 

 The Tricopter in its glory! 

 FPV System and transmitter

 Tricopter with motor guards made from foam board and coloured for orientation ( soon will put one on the back motor too).

CONCLUSION

Over all, this has become one of my favourite designs which has challenged me to be innovative, Learn from mistakes/ crashes and find ways to improve my design.

For future plans, I would change the booms from wood to Carbonfiber ( and may be also the frame ) for more added strength and the ability hide the wires for a sleeker profile. 

It is a good amateur FPV platform for me; quite stable, love the swooshiness of the meachanical yaw mechanism ( makes it feel like im more flying a plane, lots of power and able to hold lots of video equiptment.I have recently ventured in to shooting videos around the island and I am hoping to post videos  weekly on youtube. You can see my two latest Tricopter videos below.

Enjoy!