I know this is old as hell but i have basically all my quads that i go from dual to tri and from 4s to 5s to 6s without touching anything and its locked in without oscillations in every scenario and motors run cool.. Guessing its due to how good bf is now though for several revisions it has been so and i use wide variety of tri and dual props.
Good video. Do you think the poor tuning invalidates your speed testing. Also I'm noticing your motors never go to 100%, I know the flight controller leaves some "head room" for control authority, but is there a way to bump that down a bit thru Cleanflight if you notice you don't need/want that much of a buffer??
+Robert Baltrusch The FC doesn't leave headroom for authority. When a motor hits 100% the other motors are ramped down to maintain the correct proportion between them. I would want to look at the motors traces before I concluded that the motors never hit 100% because I'm not sure that the 3D model updates fast enough to show it. I considered the possibility that the oscillations affected the results, but during the actual speed run, I didn't think there was much oscillation. Only when I pitched back and turned at the end of the run did it get bad. So basically, when air is rushing over the props quickly. It's likely that the tune affected the results somewhat, but I thought that, in general, the results were probably still valid. My hope was that, by showing the method I used, I would inspire other people to run the same tests on their own motors and props. The conclusion that two-blade is faster than three-blade all else being equal should actually not be that controversial.
so i watched your original PID tuning videos... and your stuff has gotten WAY better since then. it would be nice to see [if you haven't put out already and I just missed it] a PID tuning from start to finish with maybe configurator screen shot changes with how you are doing it? then second part tweaking in BB logs? some of us don't have BB however... but I would like to get much better at tuning and feel right now I am more blindly making adjustments rather logically.
Joshua Bardwell I can only imagine! its certainly one of the more difficult things to wrap my head around... and fortunately stock BF PIDs have treated me kindly so far, but have issues like prop wash oscillations still and probably isn't nearly as tight as it could be. then again, my skill level probably isn't as good as my stock tune ;)
+knwest2012 I don't have solid data to prove it, but damped light should improve battery life, I would think, because when the ESC is braking, current flows back into the battery. But regardless of the answer, damped light makes such a HUGE difference in flight performance, that even if it reduced battery life by 10%, I would still use it.
Whats a good fraction to log at? I'm currently logging at 1/2 at 1000 looptime. but i am not sure if that is high enough resolution, what's the general consensus?
Do you think its possible to have some kind of offset in bf to adjust for different props/ batteries / etc. Having separate profiles is clunky to change and admin. How about a % dampening on the pids you could change with a 3 pos switch at the field (always resetting to zero after power cycling quad). So if you tune the quad for a 3s tri but occasionally fly 4s you could drop the pids 5% before arming 4s. And if you decide to run 4s with quad blades possibly drop 8%. Etc. Not sure on what proportion p i and d would drop to the % Obviously wouldn't be perfect tune vs specific profile - but a lot more manageable if you fly a lot of quads. And probably a lot better than just using one set of pids which is what most just do?
Chasing power is a game of diminishing returns. Look at motorsport, or the perfect example is rocketry, more power needs more fuel, which weighs more, and needs more power to move etc. The good old DYS be1806 give me great flight times, and arent too bad on a very light quad. Sure its not as fast, but i just go in tighter areas for the same sensation. I just built a quad that could pull 120amps, which is ridiculous! No battery can keep up with that for more than a couple of minutes. Maybe you could show us what is a good middle ground, or you know of a combination that is better than all others.
+Mik H My current setup, 2205/2633kv on 5040 props, is the result of searching for that sweet spot. Great speed and good thrust with reasonable amp draw and flight times.
+Mini Quad Topix ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bA0_YaBV8ew.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yVsXr1nkR2Q.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wOhm4bnkKiE.html That is some start anyway.
