Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Maker Hangar 2: 03 – Tricopter Build Part 2”.
Hello and welcome to maker hanger, my name is lucas weekley and today we’re going to finish building the tricopter, we’re going to install all the electronics and then finish, building the frame. So let’s get started here is where we left off. In last episode we have our three arms done and then part of the body is done as well. So now we’re going to start mounting electronics – and i have all our escs over right here and we’re going to start attaching them to our motors.
But first here are the tools you’re going to need for this part of the build, so we’re just plugging these in it doesn’t matter which one they go in right now, because we’ll switch them later when we put on the propellers and then we’re also going to Plug in our servo extension so now that i’ve attached all the esc’s we’re going to zip tie them in place so that they don’t move. You can see how i did this. I just attached a zip tie right here and here on the opposite sides of the connectors and then just one on the esc to hold that in place.
So i’m going to do the same thing for the other arms. Now that we have all of our wiring and esc secured with zip ties, we can now route the wires for the power and see how long they have to be and where we have to solder them onto so unfolded like it is right now the wires are Going to be longer so we need to position it so that these arms are folded, so you can just put them roughly about where they’re going to be, and now we’re going to take our wire that you’re supposed to buy and route it out and see. How long we need to make it so that we can solder everything together properly. So i have my wire right here and i am going to hold it at the edges of here and a little bit over, because we’re going to cut off some for the stripping it and then i’m going to wrap it around, leave plenty of slack and bring It all the way back to the back of the frame. Once i see where it’s going to go, which is about right here, bring it a little bit tighter, i’m going to hold this and then i’m going to cut it so because the front two arms are exactly the same. I’M just going to cut these to the same length so now we have our front two wires which we’ll solder on in a second.
Now, let’s get the back wire. This is going to come forward and then wrap around to the back so about that long. Just like that, okay, now, let’s get soldering so i’ve taken one of our wires that we just cut and i’ve just stripped the end with my wire strippers and i’m going to put them in my helping hands right here and then i’m also going to put the Corresponding esc wire and the helping hands as well and then line these up, we can put the heat shrink on after, because we still have the end exposed and i’m gon na start. Soldering do the same thing for the other set. Then i’m going to grab my heat shrink and cut it into some links like that, just to cover up these connections and i’m going to slide these on and then i’m going to use my heat gun to just shrink these. Now, that’s done! I’M going to do the same thing for the other arms now that we’ve gotten all these wires soldered on we’re going to position this in a way where we’re going to see how we’re going to solder this all together.
Okay, now i’m going to route the wires over here. We just need them to tuck in over here and have some slack come in over here, just like this okay, so we can cut these down a little bit they’re a little bit too long, which is not a problem. You definitely want slack in something like this. Okay, i’m going to cut all these about here, there’s no real precise way of doing this. You don’t really need it to be precise, because we’re just going to be adding a length of wire to it on later, i’m going to cut them all right here. Okay, now, with this in my hand, i’m going to strip all these wires pick these up and we’re going to solder them together.
Just like this now, we’ve gotten all our wires stripped we’re going to set these arms aside and get our connector ready. So i’m going to cut a little strip of wire to solder onto the connector that’ll, make it easier to solder all these wires too, so about three or four inches doesn’t have to be anything precise. This is where your battery is going to connect to okay. Now i’m going to strip the ends of these and now we’re going to solder these into our connector.
Now i’m using an xt60 connector these you can get from hobbyking and other places as well. I just prefer these on my batteries. So that’s what i’m going to be using this! It’S your personal preference to whatever connector you want just make sure that your battery has the same connector and we’re going to follow what it says on the connector. So positive is on this side.
Negative is on this side and if you want more information about how to solder on these connectors and for on the esc’s as well, you can go check out the previous season of maker. Hanger and there’ll be a episode up on the screen. So you can go! Click on that and watch that so now i’ve gotten the connector soldered on, i put some heat shrink on and then i also strip the wires at the end. So now we’re going to solder these to all the other wires for our arms.
So, let’s get started with that! You want to make sure that the solder soaks into all the wires so that you don’t get a dry solder joint and now i’m going to slide the heat shrink over and shrink it into position. Now i’m going to do the same thing for the ground wires. Now that we’ve finished the soldering, we’re going to position the arms and start bolting them together.
So the back goes in the back, and these front two go like this they’re going to be positioned like this, and this back one is going to be flipped once we start, the landing gear is preventing us from doing that right now, okay, so i’m gon na Put in the bottom, underneath all this so now that we’ve gotten it positioned, we’re gon na start putting in the bolts and the first ones that we’re gon na put in uh. We don’t need the top four, and these are these holes and those are for locking the arms into position. So you’re going to take an m3 by 25 bolt you’re going to slide it through the hole and then you’re going to put a lock nut on the opposite side. Just get it to where the nylon part meets, and that’s fine and go ahead and slide that under there that’ll keep it upright do the same thing to the other side. Now we need the top piece that we prepared earlier make sure that all your wires and are in the right position and we’re going to slide this in, like here, lining up the hole.
So we can still see them we’re going to take our m25 bolts, our washers and our lock nuts and start putting this together. So you put a washer on the bolt first and you slide it through this hole and make sure it goes through both sides and just position it like that. Okay, let’s just focus on the top first put a washer on and then a lock nut then put another washer and another lock nut and now the way that we’re properly going to do the back is by just feeding one at a time and then putting the Lock nut on so it doesn’t fall through again, don’t put any washers on these bolts. Now that we’ve gotten all the lock nuts on i’m going to fold back the arms which will make it a lot easier to put it on its side.
So we can tighten all the bolts, so i’m going to extend these out and bring them back and put them into their locking spot. Okay, now, on its side, i’m gon na start with these locking bolts. First, you just have to get them tight enough. That they’re touching the top and bottom plates don’t tighten them anymore, or else you won’t be able to get them into the slots. I’M going to do the folding nuts again, you don’t want to get these too tight, or else they won’t slide. Now you can test how these are going to move. You can adjust their tension later on now, let’s focus on the tail, i’m just going to get these tightened and then we’ll position the tail where we want it and then tighten it down all the way. Okay, now with this upright we’re going to push in our tail and move it so that it’s centered and then also straight with the body – and you can just eyeball this okay, now i’ve gotten it where i want it. So i’m going to go ahead and finish. Tightening down all these bolts now we can unfold the arms and change the tension of these bolts so that it folds properly. Now you do want to be careful when opening and closing these arms. Now, because they’re, basically giant scissors and they’ll cut any wire that gets stuck in between them, so be careful.
So i’m going to unfold this, and i can’t push this in so i need to loosen this bolt. Okay. Now i can move that in and this locking bolt is a little bit loose, so i can tighten that one up and i think i loosened this one a little bit too much. Okay, let’s test that and come out it can fold.
Once i put this head up there, yep and then it’ll lock into position. I can actually tighten it a little bit more okay. So that’s pretty good! You can see how it’s kind of resistive if it wants to come out or in which is what you want and then also that it slides smoothly too so you’re just going to have to play around with them and get them to the proper tension. I’M going to do the same thing for this one and then we’ll move on okay.
Now i’ve gotten the tension, just fine for these folding arms they come out easily and then they fold up and they click into place when i put them in inside their slots. Now, if you don’t like the folding mechanism and if you think it’s like a little bit too flimsy – you can always tighten both of these bolts on both of the arms and it becomes rock solid. So if you’re going to be doing acrobatics with this, then that’s definitely something that you’re going to want to do, but for just fpv flying and things like that, it doesn’t really matter, and the folding aspect of this is very convenient. Okay, now, what we’re going to do is we’re going to attach the landing gear to the front.
So this isn’t all crooked still now you’re going to get your two landing gear pick. Whatever sign looks the best, that’s how we’re going to position them and you’re going to place them in between where we have the connections right here and our arm and we’re going to just zip tie them into place like so. So let me do that. Really! Quick! Now i’m just going to take a pair of pliers because we want these to be pretty tight. Okay and i’m just gon na cut off the excess, and now i’m gon na do the same thing to the other side. Okay, now we have all the landing gear on this and the reason why we zip tied them is so if you do get in a crash, they’ll just break off and you can re-buy these pieces and you’re not going to have to re-buy a whole arm and Redo that too, because these will take most of the grunt of the crash and the arms won’t.
So now i have the tricopter flipped over, so we can mount the camera and battery tray now. One thing i forgot to mention that’s very important is that you need to make sure that the socket heads are facing outwards when you mount the bottom plate. This is the only way that you’ll be able to change out the wire if something goes wrong with it.
So be sure, that’s how it works and the brackets are on the inside with the nuts okay. Getting back to the build we’re going to take the wire rope and i’m going to slide it under the pre-assembled pieces. And you want these brackets to face towards the ground, so i’m going to slide this under and i’m going to line it up with the laser etched outlines to make sure that they’re all the same length make sure it’s positioned properly put in the other bolt and Tighten it down.
Okay, now i’ve gotten this one tightened and i’m going to do the same for all the others. So i’ve mounted all the wire ropes and you can see how this is going to work as a vibration absorber. The camera goes up in the front and the battery is going to go in between here now.
All that’s left is to mount the flight controller board. So that’s what we’re going to be doing next time i’ll show you how to mount the fly controller board wire. It up and then we’re going to program it to get it ready to fly so i’ll, see you then, thanks for watching .