Some flights on 11th August 2020
Dragonfly 3
Hardware | Comments | |
---|---|---|
Frame: | Home made | |
Frame type: | Tricopter | |
Source: | ||
Circumdiameter (without props): | ||
Take off weight: | ||
Flight controller: | ||
Receiver: | ELRS | |
ESC: | ||
Motors: | ||
GPS: | None. | |
LiDAR & Optical flow: | None | |
VTx: | ||
FPV Camera: | ||
HD Camera: |
I built this tricopter last year. The first few flights were a complete disaster!
The tricopter was virtually uncontrollable and took a lot of fighting with the sticks to get it in the air at all. No amount of PID tuning helped at all.
At first I thought that I had damaged the flight controller as I had had a lot of problems flashing the firmware on the Illuminati 32s. I decided to leave this one and use it for parts in a future project.
During the current coronavirus lockdown I thought I would have one last look before dismantling it. It was only then that I noticed that one of the spars was slightly warped and the port motor was not level.
A couple of washers under the motor mount soon had the motor level.
I reset the PIDs to default, checked all the Cleanflight settings, recalibrated the accelerometer and tried another test flight. Hey! It flew great. After a bit of PID tuning it is now one of my most stable copters.