While I am waiting for my Phlatprinter to arrive I figured I would get some practise using Sketchup.
It takes a bit of getting used to after using the rather unintuitive autocad for so long.

It still needs a bunch of work but I managed to get something that looks relatively complete so I figured I would post a screenshot.

Attached files

 

I did a bit more tweaking last night and this morning.

I noticed the arms would not be able to fold without interfering with the stabilizer board so I offseted the pivot so that the arms will now clear.



I enlarged the plates that will lock in the landing gear and notched the lower board to aid with alignment.



The plan so far is to build the bulk of the frame out of 1/8th light ply and the rest out of 1/16th ply. The arms will be made out of 1/2" square hardwood. Hopfully the postal lock out will end next week so I can pick up my phlatprinter and assemble it over a few evenings. Other than a bit of wire and some lights I have everything else I need to complete this build.

The motors will be Turnigy Donkey ST3007 turning either 10x4.7 or 9x6 props. The square in the middle of the board is to clear a KK blackboard and the landing gear is spaced to fit a 3600 mah 3S lipo.

The rear motor tilt mechanism is going to be a crude bearing made out of arrow shafts and the entire rear arm will pivot. Attached files

 

Helno, you've got the SU thing real fast. You must have had experience with another program before, right? It looks awesome. Would you post the SU file once you've finished it to your liking?

 

I plan to post the plans once I get it done. No much left other than to add lightening holes and line a few things up better.

I learned drafting the old fashion way with a table and then learned how to use autocad back when it was a DOS program. I decided to switch over to sketchup as the newer versions of autocad have suffered rather heavy bloat.

 

Thanks for featuring my design. Here is the basically complete sketchup file for people to look at.

Let me know if you can find any problems or changes.

Attached files Tricopter.skp (414.3 KB)Â

 

I called in a favour and had my frame laser cut.





A few details will have to change for this to work on a router but it went together pretty good for my first design.

I'm still debating how to pivot the tail but otherwise the assembly should go pretty quick. Attached files

 

No problem. I was actually installing the motors and building the tail tilt while we were talking. It should be done in the next week or so.

 

Well I can report that this things flys really well. I was flying it in pretty strong winds this weekend and had no trouble.

I havent flown in in dead air yet but I think it will be able to hover hands off.

The front arm mounts do need a bit of tweaking as I made them to weak to do there job correctly. The idea was for them to be sacrificial in the event of a crash but they broke just by holding the frome up on its side. So those well need to be beefed up quite a bit.

Total cost including the KKboard was around $200.

 

I had a crash and broke a few bits. Used that as an excuse to redesign the weaker parts.

I beefed up the battery tray and legs. I added a few little horns to use rubber bands to hold the arms forward.

Flys great but can be very disorienting if you get turned around while in the air. This would make a great FPV platform but I think I would need some more effiecient motors to get longer flight times for that.

 

Helno, what motor, prop and battery were you using?

 

I am running a pretty crappy power system.

The motors are Donkey ST3007-1100kv from turnigy with 9x4.5e props.

Here is a short video from tonight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AXlnqLi430

 

Just in case anyone is wondering I have replaced the power system in this machine.

Now I am using 3 RCtimer 2830-13 850 kv motors with 12x4.5 props. The difference in flight time is incredible. They are much smaller motors than the HK donkeys but with the larger props they are right at peak efficiency when hovering.

I havent flown it outdoors yet with the new power system but I will when the winds die down.

Managed to keep it hovering for 11.5 minutes last night in the gym with the lights running. If I got some better props I should be able to squeze a bit more time out of it.

 

I have been doing much more flying with this Tricopter. I really like flying it in the late evening and in the dark, makes it much easier to maintain orientation.

This is a quick test of its ability to carry a gopro. Now I just need to get some FPV gear.

 

Update time.

I have been getting better and better performance with every firmware update from Rolf Bakke on the KK2.0. With version 1.5 he added 2 axis camera stabilization.

A few minutes of rough sketching a then a few minutes of Sketchup and I was cutting wood. Cost was about $10 including the servos.

Works pretty good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouu35Ukgt_k

 

Time for another update to this design.

New design uses G10 for the main frame and eliminates the landing gear in exchange for a rcexplorer style battery tray.

 

Are you going to post this frame to download. I would love to use this version for my tricopter. I fly the Explorer version 1.5v. Got some G10 that needs to be used for just this Looks great


Thanks
Jeff

 

I might start selling this one.

Here is the file for phlatprinter owners.
viewtopic.php?f=302&t=9951