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Hey everyone, UAVWorks here- and today we're going to be talking about how to make your own tricopter
This video will cover everything from scratch, so if you're a beginner- this video is beginner friendly.
Now to get to our building, we're going to first go over the materials that we will need
So here, as you can see is a tricopter frame and obviously you're going to need this
This frame was built by me and right now it is not commercially available. It is designed after the FPV Manuals Delrin kit, which costs about $94
You guys are welcome to go on Google and search up FPVManuals and buy your own frame if you would like to
You can make it out of wood- plywood, probably 1/8'' is the thinnest I would go. You really want some structural integrity from your frame
I'll put the plans in the description box below so you'll be able to print them out and cut it to your liking
Something I want to mention about this frame is that I have my own protector plate. Now look at that Paragon MK II- that's just what I named the second generation tricopter.
I'll show you my first generation tricopter a little later (perhaps in another video) just so you can see what my first build was like
Anyway this protector frame is not only serving its purpose by displaying UAVWorks but also, as you can see, a protector for my flight controller.
So I stick this flight control down over here, crash upside down- boom- nothings going to happen to it because of this nifty little protector plate.
If you guys want this frame, I could probably machine it but I would need to know how many people are interested.
so if you want a frame for maybe about $25-30 shipped let me know.
The next thing you're going to need is obviously your flight controller. Now for beginners I would suggest one of these two KK boards.
This one is a little cheaper than the one with the LCD but the one with the LCD has accelerometers as well as gyroscopes.
which means that it could self level
right now, to be honest, the self leveling algorithm is not very good. For this board so you would probably get around the same stability if you go with either one.
So why not go with the cheap one until a better code is released for self leveling?
The third thing you're going to need is your servo
Now, I would recommend a metal gear digital servo just because you're going to be straining the servo a lot from your yawing
I would not recommend nylong gears or 9g servos. You're going to wear those out very quickly and the yaw is an important part of the tricopter.
So go with something expensive- this is going to be linked in the description below- it's about $20 but trust me, you really want a good metal gear servo
The fourth item you're going to need or the fourth group of item you're going to need is the speed controller.
And you need 3 of these- for beginners I would suggest the Turnigy plush which I will also link in the description below
For more advanced users like myself, I go with the F-20A's from Hobbyking
These are 20 amp ESCs manufactured by Hobbyking
What I do is I take the heat shrinking apart and put a little programmer onto each of these pads and flash the firmware
So it's multirotor compatible- now the Plushes you don't have to do this because they're compatible right out of the box
And just to mention, you can probably get these frames online. I bought this off of another member when I didn't have my own CNC or my own cutting machine
When you don't have your own cutting machine, it's much better to buy these fiber glass plates off of other people who have CNCs
Just because they are much more sturdy (than plywood) and can last a long time and unlike wood, it doesn't warp or do any of that stuff
The next thing we're going to talk about is the radio system
for beginners I would suggest going with the stock but for more advanced users I would suggest going with the FrSky module if you have the turnigy system
The arms are also an important part of multirotors especially for tricopters
These are pine dowels- they're half inch square dowels made out of pine
Yes I did say pine (twice)- it's wood.
Why? Because wood is a good vibration isolation (I should have said absorption) material
Now if you go with something like aluminum, the motor vibration is just going to travel right down the dowel
with wood, you don't have to worry about that as much.
And also it's cheap and readily available, just go to your lumber yard and pick up some of these, very cheap.
Also in a crash, these break and they absorb the energy or imparct of the crash.
so it doesn't damage your electronics
You're also going to need a bag of these which is landing gears from Hobbyking
And we'll be making our yaw mounts out of these
They're very cheap- $2 and you can make 2 yaw mechanisms out of one bag of these. So again the product link will be in the description.
and go check them out.
The final thing you're going to need are these and these are just M3 screws
You could get them anywhere really, I'll put a link in the description below
of Hobbyking screws which is what I have over here
So in addition to what I mentioned, I forgot that you also need these wires
Over here, I have written down the length that you need to cut your wires down to
Now wires are pretty cheap to get so you can get a pack at Hobbyking. I usually get enough to last me quite a while as you can see here
I don't know how I'm going to find the beginning lead so let's try to take this out without making a big mess
Now I'm going to measure the length of the wire so that I have things consistent and cut out.