Originally Posted by alek3d

Ok, some more test done. I went out and did some flying after I limited throttle travel from 120% to 70%. Then I had to apply negative expo (so reaction is much steeper) on aileron -40, elevator -40 and rudder -80. Then I could control it.

It looks like I have to fight the PID control very much in order to control it. Do you know what size are default PID optimized for? My quad is 58 cm span, so it is bigger one. Maybe I need to tune up PID so it flies better. What do you think?

Alek, do you think it could be something with the Turnigy 9X? I have a quad with a KK type board and control it ok with a DX6I but when I use a Turnigy 9X with the FrkSky module installed and a FrySky RX, It's very hard to control. It just goes all over the place.

Originally Posted by rcjose

Alek, do you think it could be something with the Turnigy 9X? I have a quad with a KK type board and control it ok with a DX6I but when I use a Turnigy 9X with the FrkSky module installed and a FrySky RX, It's very hard to control. It just goes all over the place.

I do not think so. I am flying HK boards in quad and tri and it flies great. The point with KK boards is to calibrate ESCs via the board - it is not enough to calibrate them separately, and then it is absolutely essential to make the stick calibration to set mid points. Then it flies great. Check out my tricopter, this was shot about a month ago or so.

Tricopter DIY with HK control board (2 min 2 sec)

I also flew MultiWii with my T9X and I also did not have any problems, you just need to know how to set everything up and also do some fine tuning.

Another update on FF setup. I changed PID settings and now I do not need expos on ail and ele, but rudder is still very weak, it works though. So I believe I also need to tune up PID settings.

Can someone explain what are those abbreviations R_P_Stick etc?

Originally Posted by alek3d

Can someone explain what are those abbreviations R_P_Stick etc?

R_P_Stick is probably Roll & Pitch Stick

so woul imagine it changes the Tx Stick authority (?)

PID Debug for v1.24 with english Buttonīs

Alek,
First set the 500 mm as your defaults using the PID utility. Is your yaw holding with good resistance? If not then increase the yaw P. Increase your yaw stick if you want more yaw stick authority.

I suggest only changing one value at a time until you are sure you understand the effects of your changes.

Using the PID "Debug" utility
1. Make sure your adapter is in the normal not boot mode.
2. Connect the adapter to your PC and FF.
3. Power on the FF.
4. Open up the PID utility. Make sure it is the same version as your FF firmware.
5. Set the com port to the one your PC is using for the adapter and click open.
6. Click on one of the appropriate/close default frame sizes to your model at the top left portion of the PID window. You can make changes if needed as well. A suggested method is one axis at a time one value at a time to see the effects of your change. When satisfied then duplicate the values on the other axis. See below for PID tuning recommendations.
7. Click Send to write to the FF. It will respond with a small window with ?????! to let you know it has sent the data to the FF.

Notes:
--The PID utility unfortunately does not read the current settings so do a screen capture or write down your changes and PID values.
--The save data seems to do the same as send.
--The Cal IMU will also work. Just wait as normal about 30 seconds for the green LED to go out on the FF.
--I do not know what the factory defaults button does.

PID tuning recommendations:

*Start with the defaults from the PID utility version that matches your FF firmware!

Rol*Pit_P: Increase one point at a time until you get the pitch and roll axis resistance and only one bounce to recover when the arm is test struck/upset. If you are seeing oscillations, then back off until they are gone.
Rol*Pit_I: Increase until amount and strength of self-leveling is achieved. You might have to lower P if you have this set too high. It is a balance decision between the two.
Rol*Pit_D: Adjust after the "P & I" to decrease repeat bounce or oscillations after a test strike/upset.
R_P_Stick_P: Increase value for more pitch and roll stick speed/sensitivity.
R_P_Stick_D: Like exponential. Decrease value for less pitch and roll stick sensitivity around the center.
Yaw_Stick: Increase 1-2 points at a time for more yaw stick speed/sensitivity
Yaw_P: Increase 1-2 points at a time for more yaw authority/hold.
Yaw_D: Increase or decrease 1-2 points at a time to eliminate heading lock searching.

After making PID changes, it is recommended for safety to first test your controls while the model is safely tied down. After that confidence check is satisfactory, then go fly low over soft grass to determine if the changes made a positive stability difference.

Hope that helps.
@ Snapper,
Thanks for the English v1.24 PID app.
Cheers,
Jim
Quadrocopter and Tricopter Mega Link Index

Originally Posted by alek3d

I do not think so. I am flying HK boards in quad and tri and it flies great. The point with KK boards is to calibrate ESCs via the board - it is not enough to calibrate them separately, and then it is absolutely essential to make the stick calibration to set mid points. Then it flies great. Check out my tricopter, this was shot about a month ago or so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9LmOGRY1rA

I also flew MultiWii with my T9X and I also did not have any problems, you just need to know how to set everything up and also do some fine tuning.

Another update on FF setup. I changed PID settings and now I do not need expos on ail and ele, but rudder is still very weak, it works though. So I believe I also need to tune up PID settings.

Can someone explain what are those abbreviations R_P_Stick etc?

jesolins,
I preloaded PID app with 500 mm presets and changed Yaw settings a bit. It now responds much better, still it levels itself pretty well. So I believe roll and pitch are almost perfect, I'll try to play with them a bit though. If I am able to fine tune the Yaw, it will be great.

Yaw does not respond to sticks very good. I am used to fly KK boards where Yaw is responding very well, not only quick but when released it locks to newly set heading. While this board is lazy to turn and when I release the rudder I feel like it does not lock immediately, it continues to turn for a while. But I hope I can fine tune this.

And thank you for the great support!!!

Di anybody tried succesfully mode +?


On glb site it says that your board orientation is the right one, but in all manuals I have read orientation for x and + is the same, which is 45š different than yours.

Why dont you try this orientation? See attached, texted prop directions of this picture are wrong arrrows are ok.

My quad need some servicing, in a few days I could try + setup simply by changing on zns with no board orientation and test if itīs true that the ff flies in + or x simply by soft setup (as stated in the manual)

A,
The quad would be totally wobbly and unflyable/uncontrollable if the flight controller was oriented wrong by 45 degrees.
Cheers,
Jim
Quadrocopter and Tricopter Mega Link Index

Originally Posted by apejovic

Di anybody tried succesfully mode +?


On glb site it says that your board orientation is the right one, but in all manuals I have read orientation for x and + is the same, which is 45š different than yours.

Why dont you try this orientation? See attached, texted prop directions of this picture are wrong arrrows are ok.

My quad need some servicing, in a few days I could try + setup simply by changing on zns with no board orientation and test if itīs true that the ff flies in + or x simply by soft setup (as stated in the manual)

Originally Posted by alek3d

Yaw does not respond to sticks very good. I am used to fly KK boards where Yaw is responding very well, not only quick but when released it locks to newly set heading. While this board is lazy to turn and when I release the rudder I feel like it does not lock immediately, it continues to turn for a while. But I hope I can fine tune this.
And thank you for the great support!!!

To improve the Yaw heading lock, normally you'd increase the Yaw_I term but I notice that the utility only shows a Yaw_P and Yaw_D term...
Increasing Yaw_P will make it quicker to respond.

Originally Posted by apejovic

Di anybody tried succesfully mode +?

On glb site it says that your board orientation is the right one, but in all manuals I have read orientation for x and + is the same, which is 45š different than yours.

Why dont you try this orientation? See attached, texted prop directions of this picture are wrong arrrows are ok.

Thi picture show wrong orientation. Mine is + and is already flying quite well, just need to play with PID. I'll post some test vid soon.

Hey - I finally managed to get four non-combustible ESCs together and just had my first test flight! Some comments:

1. Throttle response is a bit odd. I calibrated my ESCs one by one straight from the RX in the usual way. However as you push up the throttle stick the "minimum" motor speed causes my quad to very nearly become airborne. I use 1200kv motors and 8x4.5 props. It seems, unusual, but it seems to work well and gives you good motor control.
2. The Arming LED isn't one. It's a bit unnerving to see that LED go out but still have a fully armed copter. Be very careful. The only way you can be sure that the thing is disarmed is to blip the throttle.
3. Stick rates are very low. I had to set my TX to 100% throws to be controllable and then it just floats. Ideal for beginners but you'll probably want to change that.
4. Hover. Very good! Autolevel is always on, and this showed itself to be a little problematic. You can't trim out an autolevel trim issue with your TX trims, as they only affect rotation. My quad wanted to drift off to the right all the time, regardless of trim. That's the autolevel doing its job, but obviously I had calibrated it to a level that wasn't the natural flying level of my copter. I don't think that there is an autolevel trim in the GUI so to fix it you'd have to recalibrate the IMU or just make sure that model was at the right attitude when powering on. This is harder than you think. Having said that the hover was dreamy smooth and the autolevel obviously working well. I like it.
5. Yaw issues. As reported by others, yaw control is iffy. It's no less responsive than roll and pitch (as in not very) but overshoots the spot you let go of and basically has not much heading hold that I could see. Considering the GUI seems to know which way the model is pointed, this is odd. Not really a problem though.
6. LVA . A bit of a problem. In my NeXtcopter code, I set my LVA to 11.00V and after a flight my analyser shows the pack to be down to 10% of capacity. With the FreeFlight board, the LVA was set to 10.8V but my analyser shows 52% remaining and 11.57V. Don't read too much into that voltage, you'll just have to compensate for now.

My Quad-X is 500mm across and is based on a BlueSkyRC frame with 10mm square CF arms. KDA 2028L 1200kv motors, crappy HK SS 28A ESCs, and 8x4.5 props. 2200mAh 3S LiPo.

It's a bit different to what I'm used to but I like it a lot.
Can't wait to try it some more.

Originally Posted by alek3d

Thi picture show wrong orientation. Mine is + and is already flying quite well, just need to play with PID. I'll post some test vid soon.

So the orientation of the board for the + configuration is like this picture?? in diamond mode??

The Y axis mark as the front direction? because in the picture is not clear in that.(look in the picture the arrow of the Y axis is not in the same direction than the front direction of the frame..)

Im very confused with that...

Originally Posted by HappySundays

1. Throttle response is a bit odd. I calibrated my ESCs one by one straight from the RX in the usual way. However as you push up the throttle stick the "minimum" motor speed causes my quad to very nearly become airborne. I use 1200kv motors and 8x4.5 props. It seems, unusual, but it seems to work well and gives you good motor control.

Try measuring max PWM pulse length from FF board, and then compare this with what your Rx outputs

Originally Posted by HappySundays

2. The Arming LED isn't one. It's a bit unnerving to see that LED go out but still have a fully armed copter. Be very careful. The only way you can be sure that the thing is disarmed is to blip the throttle.

I noted this awhile back - very odd since they have 3 LED's - well actually 2 - they could use

You're never *quite* sure if it's dis-armed or not

This is an accident just waiting to happen.....

Originally Posted by Nosepo

So the orientation of the board for the + configuration is like this picture?? in diamond mode??

The Y axis mark as the front direction? because in the picture is not clear in that.(look in the picture the arrow of the Y axis is not in the same direction than the front direction of the frame..)

Im very confused with that...

The orientation is correct in the pictures (and is shown wrong in some of the manuals!)

The way to easily work it out is that the buzzer is always orientated to the back (tail motor for + config) of the copter

HTH

Originally Posted by Nosepo

So the orientation of the board for the + configuration is like this picture?? in diamond mode??

The Y axis mark as the front direction? because in the picture is not clear in that.(look in the picture the arrow of the Y axis is not in the same direction than the front direction of the frame..)

Im very confused with that...

yes this is the right picture, both arrows showing front direction of the frame.