Hi everyone! Starting the build thread on one of my dream projects, very excited
So, me(Prateek) and my friend have started aerial photography for people in Goa, till now we have worked for Sunburn Music festival, Percept Picture company and Universal Music India by just shooting from our tricopter! So we decided to make it better and give it a new life and this time I made sure that everything was perfect for the build.
The plans are a in-house design and we got it cut out of 1.5mm carbon fiber sheets from Satya Gupta(www.Quadkopters.com). He helped us a lot through this phase and I congratulate him for being one of the very few people who can provide such an exceptional service! and I recommend you to build your own multirotor or anything else by designing it yourself and getting it cut! It has been an awesome journey from the first rough plans to seeing it in the air. We would also like to thank David Wendestal from RcExplorer.se to make an awesome tricopter on which we had based our designs.

You can visit us @  www.fb.com/TheChopperBoys and www.chopperboys.in
All the electronics were used from the last build of the tricopter @ FPV Tricopter Build!(rcexplorer.se frame)

Some features of the new frame:
1. Hollow carbon fiber rods allow concealing of the wires from ESC to the centre.
2. Integrated motor mounts, no need of the + shaped mounts which come with the motors, hence the motors are directly bolted to the booms.
3. Integrated camera mount with soft rubber ball dampeners + camera holder with velcro strap for Gopr Hero 3+.
4. Concealed wiring inside the centre frame.
5. Hole on upper frame for passage of ESC wires.
6. Minimum wastage of area.

Lets start with the build now:

All the parts cut out of carbon fiber from www.QuadKopters.com


1. Measure out the size on the carbon rods, for the booms and cut them accordingly, 40cm for the front booms and 42cm for the back one.

2. Drill holes for the bolts to pass through in the frame.

3.The back boom is being channeled on the sides to fit snugly with the bolts holding it down.




4. Place bolts on the upper frame plate to fit the booms(for a dry fit)


5. Insert the arms int to bolts and place them properly.

  you forgot something if this is an entry for sweepstakes....

Quote2.  This has to be a new build, as documented by newspapers placed near the starting off material for the build. Please post multiple pictures allowing us to clearly authenticate the date claims (at least couple of pics with the items and newspaper, with the newspaper placed at multiple locations amongst the parts, and one with the date information on the news paper clearly shown).  We will consider partial builds at very early stages, on a case by case basis (so that this sweepstakes act as a catalyst for people to finish those builds).

The pic with the newspaper is coming next.

6. Insert front spacer into the bolts and tighten it.


7. We measured the distance from one hole to the one diagonally opposite one and designed mounts to hold the motor by screwing the bolts directly into them(same as rcexplorer.se).




Note: only the two front shafts will get these motor mounts as the back motor is on a yawing axis.For the following steps we will need to remove the shafts from the frame.

8. The two front shafts are drilled to fit the screws snugly.


9. Align the motor mount to the shaft to be ready to place the motor. Note :  we recommend to use some threadlock for the motors.




10.Insert the top motor mount plate and position the motor into place.






11. Tighten all the bolts to the motor( the bolts we had were to long so we had to add extra nuts to space it out)




Repeat the above steps for another arm.

12. Checking dry fit for all the booms again :  Attach the landing legs using cable/zip ties




Now for the back boom :
13. Placing the motor mount bolt the motor into place using the bolts supplied with it.


14. The motor will be attached to the yaw mechanism (Similar to rcexplorer.se)

(I don't have the build process of the mechanism covered here. For more info on that please visit rcexplorer.se)

15. Starting work on some electronics: Soldering extension cables to the ESCs going through the boom.
Cut open the covering to expose the terminals of the ESC.




16. Now pass the wires through the arms to connect to the ESCs.




First solder and the cover the connection with some heat shrink for both the power and signal cables.






Position the wires and then attach the ESC to the boom using cable/zip ties.






Repeat for second arm and your front arms are complete.

All comments and suggestions are welcome.

Awesome guys.
I want to see you someday.
Beautiful

@Nitesh- Sure! Drop us a message if you come to Goa, we'll meet up

Beautiful and in Detailed build log. 

Thanks @manojswizera. It was my dream to build my own designed cf tricopter.... so had to cover it properly

Thank you so much for the mention Prateek 

@Satya- most welcome! Thanks to you for a great quality of product

Tested the camera holder, no vibrations!

Thumps up

Thanks @docnayeem

Quote from: prateek13 on April 13, 2014, 11:01:33 AM
Tested the camera holder, no vibrations!

You should have thought of using bobbin screw. They too give 0 vibration

I did not have bobbin screws.... had 4 of the ball dampeners do designed the holder for them

Very nice build. keep it up. I saw your videos, they are fantastic.

Good going Prateek.

@Dharmik and ved- Thanks!

I hope maiden will be soon.

Maiden done already...

Oh. Post some videos.

Will do that soon... some awesome stuff coming soon
Some pics : All taken by the tricopters

Very nice pics
Blue water, beautiful beach... must have enjoyed the view during flying.