T E A M
Mini quads have been the craze recently. I too jumped on the mini quad bandwagon with a fibregrass ZMR250 frame.
Unfortunately, my receiver browned out during a flight and one of the arms broke.
I promptly ordered a carbon-fibre frame , but now i have a mini quad frame with 3 arms.
My first multirotor was a 2 cell mini tricopter and i have always been a fan of the tricopter made popular by RCExplorer (David Windestal). So naturally, i thought "if life give u a quad frame with 3 arms, u make a tricopter out of it".
Before i started the build, there was two hurdles to get pass. Namely, how to fix the rear arm of the tricopter onto the ZMR body and secondly, how to fix a servo and tilt mechanism on to said rear arm.
The rear arm was solved by bolting it to the ZMR frame holes (shown below)
The servo and tilt mechanism was more complicated. I cut the servo screw mounts to fit the quad arm motor mount holes. In addition, i also glue the servo onto the arm and added cable ties to secure it further.
Using ice cream sticks and balsa, i made a motor mount to fit my spare motors. The mount bolts directly to the servo, i added a piece of wire to provide more support for the motor mount during high stress maneuvers.
With those 2 problems solved, a basic tricopter using spare parts i have lying around was built and test flown.
ZMR250 custom tricopter mark 1
With the modified frame flighttested, i ordered a CC3D board and 6 inch props to upgrade the tricopter. FPV gear was also added. I noticed my modification leaves the front 2 arms too far relative to the rear arm. So the next mod was made by mounting the front arms with the rear 2 holes of the frame's base plate. I usually only put 2 bolts per arm instead of 4 to save weight anyway. In addition, i had to remove the bottom bolt of 2 of the aluminum posts in the frame so they wont block the arm.
With the new parts and changes, the 2nd version of the tricopter is ready.
ZMR250 custom tricopter mark 2
Unfortunately, my receiver browned out during a flight and one of the arms broke.
I promptly ordered a carbon-fibre frame , but now i have a mini quad frame with 3 arms.
My first multirotor was a 2 cell mini tricopter and i have always been a fan of the tricopter made popular by RCExplorer (David Windestal). So naturally, i thought "if life give u a quad frame with 3 arms, u make a tricopter out of it".
Before i started the build, there was two hurdles to get pass. Namely, how to fix the rear arm of the tricopter onto the ZMR body and secondly, how to fix a servo and tilt mechanism on to said rear arm.
The rear arm was solved by bolting it to the ZMR frame holes (shown below)
The servo and tilt mechanism was more complicated. I cut the servo screw mounts to fit the quad arm motor mount holes. In addition, i also glue the servo onto the arm and added cable ties to secure it further.
Using ice cream sticks and balsa, i made a motor mount to fit my spare motors. The mount bolts directly to the servo, i added a piece of wire to provide more support for the motor mount during high stress maneuvers.
With those 2 problems solved, a basic tricopter using spare parts i have lying around was built and test flown.
ZMR250 custom tricopter mark 1
With the modified frame flighttested, i ordered a CC3D board and 6 inch props to upgrade the tricopter. FPV gear was also added. I noticed my modification leaves the front 2 arms too far relative to the rear arm. So the next mod was made by mounting the front arms with the rear 2 holes of the frame's base plate. I usually only put 2 bolts per arm instead of 4 to save weight anyway. In addition, i had to remove the bottom bolt of 2 of the aluminum posts in the frame so they wont block the arm.
With the new parts and changes, the 2nd version of the tricopter is ready.
ZMR250 custom tricopter mark 2