cant tricopters be more efficiency than quadrocopters?
never saw a tricopter longrange build, it seems the lightweight longrange quads like 4" does make tricopters even more intresting than on a huge 7inch blade?!?

Great idea, Huggy.  I've always have found tricopers interesting.

And if you do a 4 inch, you have less weight and greater efficiency.  A true win win.

Maybe the tiny copter group will chime in.

Question, do you need a FC specifically for 3 motors or can a standard FC be programmed for one less motor?

A standard FC/ESC designed for quads should be usable on a tricopter and betaflight or inav should be able to handle the setup.

The yaw servo is the most common point of failure on tricopters.

Flight times are reported to be better on tricopters vs quadcopters but quads are simpler to design/build/tune.

(07-Feb-2021, 01:33 AM)kafie1980 Wrote: The yaw servo is the most common point of failure on tricopters.

Forgive my ignorance as this may be a really dumb question.  Do tricopters actually use a servo...like you find in R/C fixed wings?  I had in my mind that a tricopter would use a blended mix of the three motors to achieve yaw commands.   How does the servo work for creating yaw?

tricopter is choosable as a model in betaflight. a lot model options there.

durability is gone and sure more failure. probably less risk on a low weight?

(-: soon ifly3rotors :-) ?


@skavage
the back motor move to the right or left, moved by the servo. yaw movement from the front motors is like on a usual quad.

(07-Feb-2021, 01:46 AM)Skavage Wrote: Forgive my ignorance as this may be a really dumb question.  Do tricopters actually use a servo...like you find in R/C fixed wings?  I had in my mind that a tricopter would use a blended mix of the three motors to achieve yaw commands.   How does the servo work for creating yaw?

“Tri-copters, being inherently yaw-imbalanced due 2:1 CW/CCW rotation, use a servo to rotate the 3rd motor over to induce yaw to counter the yaw (torque) imbalance.”

Quoted above is the best explanation I could find through a quick google search.

People have attempted to build tricopters without a yaw servo but not been able to fly well enough.

(07-Feb-2021, 01:46 AM)Skavage Wrote: Forgive my ignorance as this may be a really dumb question.  Do tricopters actually use a servo...like you find in R/C fixed wings?  I had in my mind that a tricopter would use a blended mix of the three motors to achieve yaw commands.   How does the servo work for creating yaw?

David Windestal is probably the person most famously known for tri-copters. You can check out his website and the videos on his channel at the links below...

https://rcexplorer.se

https://www.youtube.com/c/DavidWindest%C3%A5l/videos

;-) is the flywoo hexplorer -lr- a scam?

I think David gave up his work with tri-copters and there isn't a lot of (if any) support in the community for them, so I'm not sure if that one ever made any (documented) long range flights.

Hi Hugnosed,

I think a sub 250 gram tri-copter would be interesting, especially if it would go 5K and fly for about 30 minutes.

Maybe you want to give it a try      Maybe it will inspire others      .....

i would like buuti like to do a tricopter seems a longtime, not for longrange. my priorities are different, only unused parts will bring me to a tricopter probably a franken-tricopter onetime :-)
i would like to know performance possibilities and would need the fastest possible servo :-) might be expensive

(07-Feb-2021, 03:16 PM)iFly4rotors Wrote: Hi Hugnosed,

I think a sub 250 gram tri-copter would be interesting, especially if it would go 5K and fly for about 30 minutes.

Maybe you want to give it a try      Maybe it will inspire others      .....

Looks like you're up, Harry!!!

(07-Feb-2021, 07:16 PM)Krohsis Wrote: Looks like you're up, Harry!!!

Hi Krohsis,

Yeah, Thanks.      I will put it on the list of future builds 

I think it will have to be behind the "Beach Comber" and the sub 250 gram octo-copter. 

I am kind of excited about building a 2 or 2.5 inch octo-copter on a light weight frame....Very Interesting...maybe even some sort of ducts ???   Yeah, this one would just be for fun...just to see how it would work out. 

Then, maybe, a Tri-copter.