I've loved the idea of tricopters ever since I started with drones by building my wooden tricopter based on RCExplorers design. After experimenting with them again recently, I decided it was time to do a dedicated build.
This is based around RCExplorers latest design, the Tricopter LR. Unfortunately, David has closed his store. He released the designs though and the Chinese shops started producing clones almost immediately, so that is what i went with for a base.
As most of my batteries are 4S 1500mah, I wanted to be able to use those packs. I ended up settling one the parts below with the goal of being able to run 7 or 8 inch props on 4S. As the frame and motors are fairly light, I hope this will be a fairly efficiency powertrain.
I also reused several parts I had around, including the Kakute board and Racerstar ESC.
Finally, I'm using the modified Betaflight 4.1 with triflight developed by jihlein. I've only test hovered it, but it's flying and hopefully i can get it flying well with minimal tuning.
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Guides & Reviews
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Very nice! I still have my ~6 year old LOS DW tricoper (signature edition plates from FT!!) on 2s2200, KK board and 7" props :) Flew it recently and impressed some folks. I haven't built a tricopter since - what is the state of tricopter support in Betaflight? Is it a special firmware build??!?
Firmware is... questionable. The user i mentioned above has done tricopter specific versions of Betaflight, iNav, and dRonin ovwr the past few years. I'm most comfortable with betaflight, so I'm using his version of that.
Supposedly larger tris will fly ok on stock betaflight, but my recent 5" was really struggled. All of these tri specific firmware are using the tail tune and servo parameters from the old Triflight firmware.
I'll be sure to pay since flight times. I also plan to try it on 3S2P 2200 packs, which should be the longest flight times with 8" props, but i think it will be a little sluggish.