Tricopter Frame Kits?

[Pelted]

Currently flying it with a KK 2.0 board on it since it's a very easy matter to make parameter changes by just pushing the buttons on the board.

So, here is an odd thing. I've finally about finished up my talon build but I'm getting no output to the servo out of the M4 output on the KK2 board. Connecting the servo directly to the Rx works as expected but completely get nothing when connecting the output from the KK board. I've getting great motor response on 1-3. The KK board was used on a mini quad before so the M4 works, just not controlling the servo. What did you do to get this working for you?

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[Benjamin Rowland]

Last night I finished wiring up the Talon Tri and gave it a go by street light in the front yard. First time I've ever flown a Tri and I have to say it's quite different than a standard quad or hex. To fly it reminds me a bit of a single rotor heli combined with a bit of airplane and multirotor. The yaw reaction is much faster than a regular multi and it's odd to see the rear motor tilting back and forth, the response to the rudder stick very much resembles an SRH in the way it moves instantly and very precisely.

In forward flight it has a feel similar to a heli but the banking ability of a fixed wing airplane, pull the stick back a bit and it hovers but without the locked in feel of quad or hex, the three widely spaced props aren't nearly as stable requiring the pilot to actively "fly" the tri as opposed to just letting it float around as you can do with a quad. One thing I can say, this rig will fly fast, seems to want to tilt forward and GO much more than any of my quads or hex, very similar to how a single rotor flys in that regard.

Currently flying it with a KK 2.0 board on it since it's a very easy matter to make parameter changes by just pushing the buttons on the board. Having never owned or flown a tri before I have no feel for how the board needs to be tuned so there's a learning curve to go through before I try something like the MutliWii Mega which will require a more knowledgeable approach to setting up the parameters, I'd rather start off easy and then progress to the more complicated setups.

My main interest in the project was two things, one never having owned or flown one before I was curious to see what the experience was like, and second I've seen some really good video footage done with tri's. The ability to quickly and easily fold it down into a compact size for transport makes it ideal for a quick video excursion without having to lug a lot of large bits around. Having finally flown one I have to give kudos to the folks that are producing great video with them, definitely not as easy as with a larger frame with a few more motors!

I'm hoping to get a decent day this coming weekend to get the tri out in the field where I can really have a chance to fly it around and see what it can do...

Ken

Ken, are you still enjoying the Talon?

 

[Pelted]

Just thought I would write a bit about my Talon and thoughts on it so far. I ordered mine along with the 380mm extended booms. I also ordered the HK "recommended" TGY-306G servo. Once the Talon was dialed in with the KK2 board and the v1.5 firmware I was immediately loving the way it flew. I'm pretty new to multi rotors, just a few months now, and several years removed from any RC stuff. I have a quad with a NAZA that is now in a TBS Diso with FPV gear, but when I just want to go out and fly the Talon is so much fun. The large booms are super stable and it just gracefully and quietly cuts through the air.


Some other additions, I added some generic 550 heli landing skids to the body. I lucked out and they are almost exactly the height of the arm landing pieces if not just a few millimeters taller. This is important because with the longer arms the body weight was causing flex when landing with the contact points being so far from the weight.


The big change for me has been replacing the ridiculous HK servo with a much much better Savox SH-0257MG. The HK unit was so far from center that I had to have serious right trim for level flight. It worked but it made my right turns really cruddy. After several weeks of that I've now had a couple of days flying with the Savox servo and damn what a difference. 0 trim on the rudder and it just flys amazing.


Some picts of an early build. I've added the getfpv bobbins to the camera mount since I've rebuilt it that have really helped reduce vibration when recording.

View attachment 8384View attachment 8385View attachment 8386View attachment 8387

 

[RTRyder]

Ken, are you still enjoying the Talon?

Yes I am. Haven't had a lot of opportunity to fly it lately but it's still just as much fun as it was the first day. Last time out I stuck a cheap FPV cam and TX on it and gave it a try flying with the goggles, definitely a lot different than flying a quad FPV.

The Tri is very graceful in the air if you fly it smoothly. Biggest problem I have with it is orientation at a distance, I seem to be able to keep track of a quad or hex better but then again I've only been flying a tri for a short while and quads and hex for several years.

I've done a few updates to mine, nothing big but the little details do make a difference. I modified the tail motor pivot to use a thrust bearing under the head of the bolt, made a big difference in smoothness. I reflashed the ESCs with SimonK firmware and swapped over to Graupner props, I can easily get 15 minutes in the air on a 3S 5000 battery.

Reminds me a lot of flying an RC plane in the way it banks in turns and acts very much like an RC heli when you move the rudder stick, tail moves immediately and very positively just like a well setup heli.

Next thing I may do is swap the Kk board for a Multiwii just to see what kind of difference it makes.

Ken

 

[Benjamin Rowland]

Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated!

 

[DennyR]

I have a Turnigy Talon with some hot motor combi. TC reflashed some of my 40 amp Pulso ESC's. These are well made but don't work without the reflash. the motors are Suppo BL-2814/8's. Uses one of TC's nice Little FC boards but also going to try a Multiwii all in one. There's a whole bunch of cheap boards that work well. Tricopters seem to handle yaw better than quads IMHO. Mine has a Gopro-3 ready for action.

Warthox has some good videos of Tri's. in action.

 

[teccer1234]

I've been flying multicopters for the last 2 years now except for the first one I bought, (scorpion) I've now built 7, 1 quad with a Wii ardunio, ( not a favorite, tricopters are much more fun to fly) and now 6 tricopters (950mm) using KK2 boards, my first 3 tris were made from plywood and 18x15mm wooden arms, now I've just built 3 more but instead of wood for the arms I've used 12x10mm aluminum U channel for the arms, I'm now using DT 750 motors with 10x4.5 gem fan props instead of the Keda 870kv motors, the idea of making some new tris is to try to tidy them up, I think I've achieved this and in the process I've managed to make the tris 280 grams lighter, I'm so chuffed with how the new lighter tri flies, that's the reason I've had to report here.

have a look at my first attempt using wooden arms, looks a mess but the newer aluminum tri looks a lot tidier
ray