The center of gravity and center of lift are in the same spot, which is in the center of APM board. Also the front arms swing forward and backward so I can move the center of lift and gravity based on the payload. But with the heavy camera and big lens, that are pictured it is perfectly balanced on the APM. Also, as Richie said, I have flown it very nose heavy and it still flies great with the APM (Tricopter in stability mode).
Kind of off topic but it looks like the center of gravity is not at the center. How does it work out that the blades are not equidistant from the center (plus center of gravity looks to be off)? Can the APM be setup to handle this non-symmetrical type of design?
The tail fins are actually used for vibration damping, and kinda looked cool. The rear arms run all the way to the very front of the frame, and they are clamped between the CF main frame plates. My ardupilotmega sits on the rear arms in the hole in the middle of the main frame plates. Carbon fiber square tubes are very stiff and easily transfer high frequency vibration from the EDFs. So I use double sided sticky tape hold the fins on, and the Ardupilot mega also sits on sticky foam as well. Which works great!
This project was inspired by the drone in the hallway in the terminator movie. I used to have a terminator body I made out of curved foam, but it got destoyed during the initial test flights, those darn trees and bushes. lol
Comments
ok that is sooooo cool !
Here is a quick video of it flying in my kitchen in the same configuration as pictured....
http://diydrones.com/video/ducted-fan-tricopter
@Robert Yes I've saved them so I can ogle them and probably get far to excited about trying build one :D Glowing red eyes and all
@Luke If you can code it, the APM can handle it. Lets not forget APM already does Y6 and tricopters.
Have u seen the other pics? my favorite is this one...
http://diydrones.com/photo/img1917-1?context=user
This project was inspired by the drone in the hallway in the terminator movie. I used to have a terminator body I made out of curved foam, but it got destoyed during the initial test flights, those darn trees and bushes. lol
"I am glad you like it. I put this frame together using square CF tubes, and some spare RC helicopter and jet parts."
Ah, now I see the tail fins bracing the arms!