"Firefly" Tiltrotor Tricopter (Project paused)

thingiverse

Update -Added extended versions of the canopy, for the rear extension bracket-Added "feet" that mount with the rest of the chassis, below the carbon rods, for wire-based landing gear, uses 1.5mm wire (I use welding thread) Info Started a drone build project, wanted a cool looking non-traditional tricopter drone, so i just went ahead and made my own, this tiltrotor design will do acceleration without pitching (hopefully). The two front rotors tilt to achieve yaw as well as "pitch", using a V-tail servo mixer. One of the two servos for the rear rotor is modified for reverse direction, (swapped polarity of the motor and internal potentiometer) so that i don't need a servo reversing circuit/component. The current weight of the drone (with everything in the first picture) weighs just 474 grams, this includes 3 motors, the flight controller, my old crystal receiver and 4 servos (+ all the cables), with a battery the drone would weigh about 1.2Kg, my current limit is 1.8Kg, since each motor can lift 1.1Kg using 6x4 propellers, at nominal top speed. Chassis The chassis has space for 2x standard 40x40mm flight controller/GPS modules, though it is specifically designed for crius multiwii and their gps module with I2C interpreter I haven't completely worked out where to fit the receiver but there is space in the front for mounting additional 40x??mm equipment (might require a bracket) I have not made a dedicated slot/location for a camera, though the front optional holes should be sufficient, since i don't have and don't plan on getting one yet ill just make edits when necessary. I might also expand the drone chassis a bit further backward, to incorporate mounting options for more equipment, like the receiver and/or a LCD. When designing this i kind of wanted to make the chassis around the battery, but the batteries that i plan on using are rather sizable, weighing in at just above 600 grams and being as long as the chassis itself, i decided to have the "battery bay" be the entire bottom of the chassis and put the electronics on top. Even though the main plate (top) of the chassis is only 4mm thick, the entire drone is surprisingly stiff and barely flexes This chassis fits 7.5mm or 8mm carbon rods, the ones i used are from old broken arrows, where the fletching (usually) was ripped or completely gone, so the chassis was actually based on using those Its still in progress, the functionality of the drone has not been tested, im waiting for more parts and i might have to make edits in the future. I have already made some edits to the model after i printed my current one, like i made the entire chassis 4mm taller, (without adding much weight) for strengthening the mounts for the carbon rods. Rod lengths are:2x 256mm2x222mm 2x303mm Technical Flight-controller:-Crius MultiWii SE 2.6 Motors:-A2212/5T 2700KV ESCs:-30Amps (ordered via aliexpress, not a specific brand) Propellers:-6x4; ~152mm in diameter, 4 inch pitch I have also made a voltage regulator chip using a 7805 IC regulator and two capacitors, really easy to make, and they can reliably handle 1Amp, input voltage is between 5...30V DC and output is constant 5V DC+/-0.1 Print Settings Printer: Wanhao Di3 Rafts: Doesn't Matter Supports: Yes Resolution: 0.175 Infill: 25...50 Notes: Some parts require supports, most don't. The rear tilting beam requires it for sure, but if you just turn some of the other parts around you can do fine without :) Post-Printing