Shrediquette - the award-winning multirotors by William Thielicke

Ok, I am actually still waiting for my ESC order to arrive (for the Shrediquette DLXm)... I was hoping that the ESCs would arrive during my holidays last week, but they didn't. So I am not able to present you a nice video of the Shrediquette DLXm in flight, shot with my brand new GoPro HD Hero camera. But you might nevertheless be interested in seeing some footage that was shot with my cam during last week's holidays. I am absolutely impressed by the exposure control of the cam and the high resolution/ slow motion feature. This seems to be THE cam for on-board videos...! Video: http://www.vimeo.com/10375186

Here is a movie showing how to use the GUI: TriGUI_tut.wmv

The design for the new mini Shrediquette seems to be finished by now. Here are some images:         Specs/ design goals Motor shaft distance: 139mm  Max. dimension: 266mm Weight: 261g Props: 5x3 3-blade GWS Motors: Roxxy 2216-25 Battery: 3S, 800mAh Thrust per motor (measured): 237g Thrust to weight ratio: 2.7:1 Current during hover: 4 A Endurance: 11 mins Hopefully I'll soon find some time to put it together...!

Probably, you already know the CFK chassis I am using on my personal Shrediquette. The chassis is really light, and I like the look a lot. While the chassis I am using was cut by hand using a jigsaw, now there seems to be a much easier way to get a chassis like this: Max from California contacted me some days ago, and has the possibilities to make some sets of my chassis from carbon. If you are interested, please feel free to contact Max: maximus365@@@juno.com I made a rendering to show the two different sizes that I designed. I am planning to order the mini chassis, because I am currently making a mini-Shrediquette (153mm distance between motors). Sizes of the chassis': Mini: 10cm diameter Standard: 14,5cm diameter

Here is another Shrediquette, built by Oğuz. He experimented with a fixed motor and some control surfaces to enable yaw control. Although the propellers are too heavy to allow an efficient stabilization, his tricopter seems to fly pretty good: Tricopter test flight from Oguz on Vimeo . Edit: Here is another outdoor video of Oguz: Tricopter Stability from Oguz on Vimeo .

The last nights were a bit shorter for me, since the PCBs I ordered at bilex-lp.com arrived. They look really good and seem to be of high quality (I ordered a different "solder resist" colour, well, I like bright colors, but anyway... ). So I had the opportunity to do my very first SMD solderings. This really seems to be comfortable... I will completely switch to SMD I think. The I²C to PWM converters work! Here are the features: Weight under 1 g Works with (most likely many) standard ESCs (currently tested: HK SS 18-20A, ...) I²C address selectable via solder jumpers (4 standard mikrokopter addresses dec 82, 84, 86, 88) Refresh rate selectable via solder jumpers (417 Hz, 292 Hz, 155 Hz, 49 Hz) Pulse width (I²C 0-255): 990µS - 2010µS Pulse width at startup (3 s): 920µS Motor off when no I²C connection longer than 256ms Motor off when microcontroller crashes (veeeery unlikely) Powered by the BEC of the ESC, or by an external 5V source (prepared as well) Very eas...

Interestingly, the first thing that people try when they flashed the firmware to the Arduino, is to connect to my GUI. But the GUI would only work if receiver and sensors were connected to the board. This seemed to cause some confusion. Tonight, I updated the firmware and the manual. Now, the connection to my GUI should even work if the receiver & transmitter isn't set up correctly. I also introduced a " special LED flashing code " that will show you if the tricopter is ready for a GUI connection (see the manual for details). It is different from the regular " in flight flashing code ". As this will probably not be the last time that I am modifying the source code, I put a text file into the zip that contains the firmware. This textfile ("_changes.txt") will track all modifications. Most likely, I will not announce every change in the source code. Just have a look at the top right corner: Everytime I changed anything, the timestamp will be up...