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getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 12:28 pm
by Tony
Guys, i have an important event coming up in July and need my quad for some aerial photography. i need the quad as stable as i can get it to get some decent footage.
the event is a Jaguar meeting in the hills of the North Yorkshire Dales, there will be some awesome looking Jags there, from the X-Type to F Type Jags.. im in the Jag UK forum and they often have meetings like this. theres around 14 going at the moment but im sure a few more will be joining in. some have done some awesome mods to there Jags..
there will also be a convoy from Hawes start location to the Tan Hill Inn (highest pub in UK), this is a narrow country lane..
ive put a post up to make sure i have every bodies permission to film the Jags and so far no objections, in fact they think its a great idea..
ive done a short video of an acro test flight in the garden with some banking and pumps so you guys can see what could be wrong with PID's. its being published now..
here is video
https://youtu.be/jtRAwVAXrsY
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 7:28 pm
by Stambo
Post a pic of your current settings t o give us more of an idea of where it's at.
It's hard to tell with such a limited flight but upping your roll I gain may reduce the decent wobble.
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 7:36 pm
by Tony
do you know, i meant to do that Stambo and forgot all about it... old age mate..

- pid settings - default.PNG (22.78 KiB) Viewed 3070 times
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 7:48 pm
by Graham Lawrie
Tony , on the reciever page post a picture please:)
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 7:51 pm
by Graham Lawrie
Put RC Rate to 0.7 or less I had mine at 0.5 and she was tame.
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 7:52 pm
by Graham Lawrie
Profile 1 as well:)
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 8:14 pm
by Tony
heres the receiver page
the profile was the pids earlier

- receiver page.PNG (29.38 KiB) Viewed 3064 times
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 8:18 pm
by danhampson
Stambo wrote:Post a pic of your current settings t o give us more of an idea of where it's at.
It's hard to tell with such a limited flight but upping your roll I gain may reduce the decent wobble.
+1
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 8:33 pm
by Tony
Settings are posted...
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 9:23 pm
by Graham Lawrie
RC Rate to 0.5 Tony:)
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 9:26 pm
by Tony
I'll do that now mate and try it in morning, far too dark now.... I'm not having any probs flying it in acro or horizon modes, I just want the videos to be super smooth if possible...
Cheers mate
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 10:06 pm
by Stambo
I would suggest using PID controller 1, it is much better than 0.
And as the other guys suggested RC rate to 0.5 will give you quite a tame quad.
Increasing roll and pitch I slightly will give you a more locked in quad and if you are flying in Angle or Horizon drop your level P down to 5 or 6.
Then another video to see your progress.
Have you made any chnages in the CLI?
The main ones I would suggest is
set looptime = 2500
and
set acc_lpf_factor = 100
don't forget to type save before you exit CLI.
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 10:36 pm
by Tony
thanks for the info Stambo, ill try all that in the morning, its bedtime now mate... ive done nothing with the settings at all, so ill do the CLI commands in morn.. then another video...
appreciate your help
ok, ive changed all those settings. cant fly tonight its far too dark and late.... thanks Stambo, ill video it in morn and post it
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 8:13 am
by Tony
done a test flight with those settings and had my first crash.... i just lost control of it.
after changing the settings for RC Rate from 0.90 to 0.50 i cant save it. the button isnt enabled to save... is this done in the RX and not CF??
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 9:55 am
by Stambo
I just tried it on mine, works and saves fine.
Maybe try again?

Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 10:08 am
by Tony
hmmm, not sure whats going on with mine then.... in the receiver tab i dropped the rc rate to 0.50, clicked on save. then went to pid tab and back to receiver tab and its back to 0.90
just rebooted laptop, and restarted CF, now it has saved my RC Rate to 0.50....
out for another test flight
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 10:25 am
by Tony
done a test flight and i now have no Horizon mode when i flick the flight switch, also the response time is far too slow, so ill just change things back, i much prefer the quad to respond instantly with stick inputs... and i like to have Horizon mode in case i get into trouble flying acro...
what i initially wanted was to smooth out the jerks when i gave it collective/throttle sticks, and to try and iron out prop wash when decending... i thought this could have been done with PID tuning. sorry for wasting your times...
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 10:46 am
by Stambo
Response time is in the RC rate, if you crank that back up to where it was it will come back again.
Oscillations when descending can usually be decreased by upping the roll and pitch I rate.
As far as losing Horizon mode, just make sure you are still using profile 1 as many of those settings are per profile.
Don't worry about wasting our time, we all enjoy trying to help.
If you try something and it does not work, you still learn from it.

Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 7:05 pm
by Graham Lawrie
Have you set up expo in your tx?
Re: getting my PID's sorted
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 7:41 pm
by Tony
No Graham, I don't want to make the quad docile, it's great as it is. I've had to change the rc rate back to 0.90 as it was far to slow at 0.50. I just want some nice smooth video recording if it's possible...
I changed the roll and pitch I values to 0.04 and 0.05 but this made it worse...
I've read somewhere if I zero the I and D and concentrate on the P first, keep taking P up until it starts to wobble, then back it off until it's stable....
Is this correct...?