Blitz's Tuning Hell Thread

[vestal lintel]

I cannot get this quad to fly well. Period. i've tried betaflight defaults, some changes based on some advice i received a while back, new versions of betaflight, i'm losing my mind.

it wobbles like crazy and the motors seem to be getting hot after about 30 seconds of just hovering

it's a 3s 5 inch quad with 2400kv 2205 motors

if it helps at all, flying with a heavier battery seems to reduce the wobble a bit

[smoky crown]

i think your rear right prop is just loose

[wary lily]

head over to the presets tab, find the filter preset that says "VERY NOISY" and select that one with whatever of the options you have

[vestal lintel]

could it be the rear right motor is shitty?

because it has a tendency to just like, dance on startup sometimes

like it just skips around

and i have to disarm and re arm

[vestal lintel]

...where is the presets tab

i've got "filter settings" but no "presets" tab

i'm on betaflight configurator 10.5.1 is that why? I had to downgrade to that to update Betaflight

[wary lily]

it sounds like you are in the PID tuning tab?

[vestal lintel]

yeah

should I not be?

[wary lily]

yeah, the presets tab is another one

[vestal lintel]

which

brb

have to go plug in my laptop

[wary lily]

im not on first name basis with the BF configurator releases, so, yea get the latest one

[vestal lintel]

100 billion dollars yearly income and dell can't come up with a battery that lasts more than an hour or keeps >70% of its capacity after 3 months

my FC can only run up to 4.0 betaflight i think

these are for 4.3, what do @wary lily

[wary lily]

https://tenor.com/view/bear-in-the-big-blue-house-taking-out-the-trash-chores-trash-bear-gif-17986472

[vestal lintel]

can't afford

[wary lily]

im sorry lol

[vestal lintel]

meh i'm just gonna ignore the warning and send it

[stone junco]

I mean

Play around with filters and see what happens

That’s what I did

[vestal lintel]

didn't like that

[wary lily]

try more filtering (lower slider)

then lower master multiplier in PIDs to like.. 0.7

see how that goes

[vestal lintel]

uhh

problem

slider says something about expert mode

[wary lily]

yea enable that

[vestal lintel]

nvm

am dumb

found the button lol

where did the sliders go 😭

weren't they added in 4.3

maybe i have to just like do it manually

[stone junco]

🗿

What do you have in your filters tab

[wary lily]

I think maybe I'm just not the right person to help lol 🥲

[vestal lintel]

everything but sliders

[stone junco]

Pain if only we had the masta tuna from mr steele server

[stone junco]

Complicated ah filters

[wary lily]

okay fuck the filters then, just try lowering your master multiplier

[stone junco]

[vestal lintel]

where is that lmao

[wary lily]

PIDs

[stone junco]

Wait are you on stock settings? @vestal lintel

[vestal lintel]

uhh well

i was according to the old configurator

i can reset to stock again maybe this one is different

[stone junco]

Don’t be like me and put on pid preset before even flying the quad

[vestal lintel]

where da hell is even dat

[wary lily]

what in the fuck

[vestal lintel]

i'm die

[wary lily]

wheres the rest

[stone junco]

Jeez

[vestal lintel]

should i just reset everything to default and see if they come back

not like the quad flies anyway

[wary lily]

wait master multiplier came with sliders?

fuck me people had it hard in the past

lmao

[vestal lintel]

yeah well i've got past ahh technology

so bear with me

or paypal me 80 usd and i'll order a new stack

i'll just buy the f405 stack like everyone says to

[wary lily]

t r y l o w e r i n g e v e r y P I D v a l u e m a n u a l l y o n R O L L a n d P I T C H a x i s

[vestal lintel]

this goofy ahh aliexpress lookin mf quad

[vestal lintel]

HOW MUCH 💀

[wary lily]

by like 30%

[stone junco]

Question is by how much lol

Oh

Well nice

[vestal lintel]

all of the values?

yay now i have to do math

[stone junco]

On roll and pitch

[wary lily]

these

[vestal lintel]

ok

[wary lily]

just 30% ish

[vestal lintel]

ok

[wary lily]

we're not gonna make it amazing on the first go, just trying to figure out which direction we're heading

[vestal lintel]

ok why did i forget basic math and forget how to determine 70% of a number

[wary lily]

lets do 25% then to make it easy

1/4

[stone junco]

[vestal lintel]

no like what's the equation lol

[wary lily]

i dont do math either

[vestal lintel]

it's something / something

[wary lily]

ballpark it lmao

[stone junco]

X0.7

[wary lily]

that

[vestal lintel]

oh, duhhhhhhhhhh

like i said, simple

[stone junco]

Yes

[vestal lintel]

so not feed forward right?

[wary lily]

yeah lets leave that for now

[vestal lintel]

k

[wary lily]

actually no

just lower it too

cant hurt

[vestal lintel]

k

done

anything else @wary lily ?

[wary lily]

no just see how that is for now

[vestal lintel]

alr

gonna go attempt to fly this POS again, wish me luck lol

@wary lily i believe this flight speaks for itself

also what's the program to view blackbox btw

blackbox explorer?

[wary lily]

im on my phone so i'd rather you do the speaking

[vestal lintel]

uhh

[wary lily]

yes, and PID toolbox

[vestal lintel]

can i screenshot it and send you that?

basically it just made it 10 times worse

[wary lily]

okay thats fine

[vestal lintel]

it like, flipped over trying to compensate for wobble

so what now

[wary lily]

turn back everything to where it was

except D

[vestal lintel]

ok

done, anything else?

[wary lily]

no just see how that is

we're just doing some rapid quick testing :P

[vestal lintel]

k

So, bad news, bad news

Bad news 1 is that didn't fix it, maybe it helped a little bit

Bad news 2 is it was bad enough to send the quad onto the concrete driveway 15 feet away and broke a prop

And I don't have any extras with me

[wary lily]

😭

[vestal lintel]

It seems to be if I throttle up then drop throttle, it completely loses its shit

Does that help determine the issue at all?

[wary lily]

not really, if anything that just points to multiple issues

[vestal lintel]

I was told before that 3s 2400kv just doesn't have the power on 5 inch

To fly

Which is weird because it flew decent on cleanflight

And I copied the build in drl Sim and it flew fine for what that's worth

[wary lily]

My logic is that it doesnt have nearly the authority that a modern 6s 5" has, so it will need higher PIDs.
I asked you to lower it to make sure that made it worse, and because you were already having hot motors i didnt wanna risk anything burning.
Now we're back up to default values again, but with lower D to hopefully fix the motor heat.
Next step would be trying to go above the default values on P to give it some of that authority it needs

[wary lily]

yea I just think your quad is more representative of what cleanflight was made to control maybe

[vestal lintel]

Could the heat be filters too?

[wary lily]

definitely related

in some way or the other

[vestal lintel]

Because one of the motors or maybe more than 1 does make a high pitched whine....

Forgot to mention that because it's only occasionally (or maybe i just learned to ignore it)

Heard that's usually filtering

[wary lily]

well

i think the rule of thumb is dont try to fix hardware issues with a tune

[vestal lintel]

Is that hardware?

I was told it's probably a bad filter

[wary lily]

an intermittently whining motor just sounds like a bad motor

[vestal lintel]

i don't think it was intermittent

but the weird stuttering on the start was

[wary lily]

Maybe, im no expert on tuning

[vestal lintel]

i'm willing to bet it's the ESCs

[wary lily]

I'm gonna head to bed, good luck 👋

[vestal lintel]

the motors feel fine physically, even resistance and all that, and the escs are definitely some off brand AliExpress garbage

alright, thanks

[halcyon field]

got no raw data but thats ok

oh my goodness gracious this baby tracks like garbage why are we lowering the master slider

very slow oscillations

constant, non stop oscillation

[vestal lintel]

Yeah, so what should I ACTUALLY do then @halcyon field

[halcyon field]

Increase roll pitch and yaw PIDs by a bit

Proportionally to each other

Do this until it starts acting weird or flyin good

Or until the motors get too hot

[vestal lintel]

So like, the opposite of what Brutus told me to do

[vestal lintel]

How hot is "too hot"

[halcyon field]

Until you cannot hold your fingers on them indefinitely

[vestal lintel]

Is "barely comfortable to touch after 30 seconds of hovering" bad?

Like, it's unpleasant but not painful

[halcyon field]

Read what he said

Eh... if you have thick skin it could be bad yes

So you get too much motor heat

damn already reached the limits of the thing ?!

[vestal lintel]

Could shitty escs cause motor heat?

[halcyon field]

Sure can

[vestal lintel]

I'd bet that's why

This quad is flying on escs that no one here has been able to identify

[halcyon field]

Trying to adjust/commutate the motor faster than it can handle is not good

Becomes toaster

My quad on a stock tune has cool motors after a rip

[vestal lintel]

Don't show up on esc configurator, blheli suite reads them as just "---"

For 3s 2400kv, are 30a escs ok?

I'm gonna ask you a question tho @halcyon field, will I be able to get this to fly decently on 3s 2400kv?

Or should I just get 4s batteries when I get new escs?

I feel like it has plenty of power, it hovers around 1/3 throttle

It's just a matter of the weird tuning junk

[halcyon field]

I'm big on providing answers from old experiences/previous peoples

There is not a single example I know of someone tuning 3S 5"

You are the first

[vestal lintel]

Fair

[halcyon field]

I hover at 20% throttle on a bad day

[vestal lintel]

I don't really care about flight performance in terms of all the things you look at, like speed, maneuverability, etc

I just want it to fly stable and not wobble like a drunk guy in an earthquake

[halcyon field]

For that the flight controller needs to react stronger than it currently is

Which as Brutus said is an increase in PIDs

However, we've reached a limit with hot motors so the rest is up to you

[vestal lintel]

If the only real option would be 4 cell batteries, then that'll be that, but I'd prefer not to invest in a whole new battery type just for one quad

[vestal lintel]

Like I said, I'm willing to bet the ESCs are the issue

What I'll probably actually do is get myself a stack

And then I can figure things out from there

I just need the money, the f405 speedybee stack is what, $80?

[halcyon field]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[stone junco]

Imagine picking it up and it’s like when you touch a frying pan

You just drop it out of instinct

[hot pier]

It's currently on sale for $60, down from $70

[hot pier]

There are plenty of examples... from 2015. And none of them flew well, at all, ever. We're reliving the reasons why in real time

[vestal lintel]

It's just weird that it flew well in cleanflight and betaflight being a fork of cleanflight it refuses to

[vestal lintel]

Still $60 more than my yearly income

[hot pier]

Betaflight's PID controller expects to have more power. Cleanflight was built for old shit, like F1 CC3D flight controllers. Betaflight immediately branched away and advanced far beyond that by v4.0, but a fundamental requirement for Betaflight's PID controller to work well is that the motors need to be able to respond in a reasonable amount of time, and at 3S yours simply do not satisfy that requirement

[vestal lintel]

Huh, okay

[hot pier]

I wonder how well it would fly if you flashed it with BF 2.x

[vestal lintel]

It's odd to me that it has enough power to fly and fly fast but not stable

Like when it flew on cleanflight it flew well enough that I enjoyed flying it and it felt as stable as any store bought quad I've flown

Now it'll barely stay in the air

[vestal lintel]

By all means it can't hurt

I could go BACK to cleanflight too

But I don't have the original config and I'm much less likely to find someone who knows how to tune cleanflight

[hot pier]

When it comes to Betaflight PIDs, there is an inverse relationship between the PID tune and the amount of motor power (and therefore torque) available. The higher the voltage, the lower the PID gains. The lower the voltage, the higher the PID gains. But you can only advance PIDs to a certain point, where you meet the physical limitations of the hardware (in this case, your motors won't stay cool)

Cleanflight's PID controller is pretty barebones relatively speaking. It'd take me a bit to remember it all, because it's been a while but I might be able to help you with it.

[vestal lintel]

Here's the thing though: based on the whiny noise and the fact that the motors sometimes just decide NOT to start and just skip around, I'm guessing a fair bit of my issue lies with my ESCs

It's usually one of the four motors that does this, doesn't always seem to be the same motor

[hot pier]

That is also possible. And if the FETs are in bad shape, they may not even be able to respond to Betaflight's

Hang on

[vestal lintel]

I think my best course of action would be to get the f405 stack, attempt to tune THAT on 3s, and then I can move to 4s from there if needed?

[hot pier]

What PID loop frequency are you running?

[vestal lintel]

Not sure, probably default

I'm at school so I can't check rn

[hot pier]

Ok

[hot pier]

You can, but if you're going to buy new batteries anyway and you aren't going to buy new motors, skip 4S and go to 5S

[vestal lintel]

Fair

[hot pier]

It's a less common voltage, but 2400Kv will play much better at 5S than 4S

[vestal lintel]

I'd prefer not to pay for more motors unless I have to

And the difference in price between 4s and 5s is pretty negligible right?

Do you happen to know if the f405 stack can do 3d mode?

Because I bought those 3d mode props and I wanna try those out sometime

[hot pier]

All modern FCs and ESCs are capable of 3D mode

[vestal lintel]

Alright

So I'll probably just get the f405 stack at some point whenever I get $60

Which will probably be a LONG time but still

[hot pier]

The average price of a 5S battery is going to be ~25% more than an average 4S battery

[vestal lintel]

What capacity should I get?

[hot pier]

For a 5" I'd go about 1300mAh

[vestal lintel]

Also that's only gonna be like a $5 difference per battery for 1300mah iirc

Because I think 1300mah batteries are around $20-25 last time I looked

Where should I order so that I can order everything in one place?

Batteries and the stack

[hot pier]

Wherever has everything in stock. Pyrodrone, GetFPV, Racedayquads if you're in the USA

[vestal lintel]

I know some rc shops don't stock batteries, and I'd prefer not to wait 35 years for ground shipping

Which one would be fastest?

[hot pier]

CNHL currently has 4S 1300mAh for $15, and 5S 1300mAh for $23, but their 4S are more popular so priced a little lower

[vestal lintel]

I know some are quicker at shopping out than others, and I'm in NY so

[hot pier]

Lipos will always be shipped ground

That's a legal thing

[vestal lintel]

Yeah I know that

But ground is usually faster the closer you are, and the faster they send them out the faster they'll get here

[hot pier]

I always get my Pyro (CA) or RDQ (FL) orders in about 3 days and I'm in the Midwest

[vestal lintel]

Alright

So I'll just order from wherever has everything

[hot pier]

Pyro generally gets them out the door a little quicker

[vestal lintel]

For cheapest

Which one does a cheaper minimum free shipping price?

Actually I'll probably be spending $100 ish anyway

[hot pier]

They're both free above $99

[vestal lintel]

Also what props should I get for this, I should stock up with a few sets

Because I'll probably break a few learning to fly a faster quad

[hot pier]

I'll fall back on Vitroid's usual recommendation because my taste in props is uncommon

HQ J37/J40, Ethix P-series, or Gemfan F3s/F4s or the Gemfan Sbang

[halcyon field]

That's before I was born!

[vestal lintel]

Bro is under tos age

Ban ban ban ban

[vestal lintel]

https://pyrodrone.com/collections/5s-batteries/products/g-plus-1300mah-185v-5s-100c-li-po-battery @hot pier are these decent

or is there something better i can get for that price

[vestal lintel]

@hot pier sorry for another ping but I've got some 5 inch bi blade props, would those fly better / be easier to tune on such high kv?

And such low thrust?

They'd also take the weight down so reduce heat

Also we can mess with pid loop frequency if you like, I'm back with my quad and I got some extra props

[hot pier]

I personally don't like how bi-blades handle but it's your call. What frequency are you running?

[vestal lintel]

Lemme check rq

[vestal lintel]

Well it can't handle WORSE than the quad flipping the fuck over and landing 20 feet away

Or, it can

But if it doesn't do that

It's an improvement

0.53 Khz @hot pier

[hot pier]

...

[vestal lintel]

what?

[hot pier]

0.53?

[vestal lintel]

correct

[hot pier]

This is an F3 board, right?

[vestal lintel]

i... think so?

yes

googled it

[hot pier]

Set it to 2khz

[vestal lintel]

ok

2.67?

closest option below that is 1.33

[hot pier]

Yea that should be ok. Let's just start there, I think

[vestal lintel]

ok

should i reset all the PIDs?

[hot pier]

I think that would be wise, since they still haven't been dialled in

[vestal lintel]

because they're still at what brutus had me set them to

yeah

uhh

it doesn't want to go to 2.67

it just reset to .5 after a reboot

https://github.com/cleanflight/cleanflight/blob/master/docs/boards/Board - RMDO.md here's the board on cleanflight docs

if the specs help

also, in the future, i've noticed sonar support

what does that do

and it uses TRIG and ECHO, which i've seen used on those ultrasonic modules for arduino

[hot pier]

A sonar sensor can be used to measure altitude for use with BARO and SONAR altitude hold modes

[vestal lintel]

oh neat

[vestal lintel]

is it compatible with these?

just might expirement with it later

[hot pier]

I have absolutely no idea

Never used it

[vestal lintel]

oh ok

[hot pier]

"Currently the main supported sensor is the HCSR04 sensor. The Parallax 28015 single-wire sonar can also be used by connecting 1k resistors to the Trigger and Echo pins, and the other end of the resistors shorted together and to the Sonar module."

https://betaflight.com/docs/development/Sonar

[vestal lintel]

oh that's what this is

neat

anyway

[vestal lintel]

problem

[hot pier]

You're on BF 4.0.6?

[vestal lintel]

i believe so

yep

[hot pier]

Alright

That board uses an I2C gyro, so it won't run the gyro above 4kHz, and the PID loop is I think) locked to 1/2 of the gyro

So try setting it to 1.33 or whatever

[vestal lintel]

didn't work either

gyro is 2.67

could it be performance issues?

can i drop some sensors or something?

i've only got accel and baro on right now

but i don't think i need baro

[hot pier]

In the very bottom of the Configurator window you should see a CPU Load: item, what % does that say?

[vestal lintel]

16%

[hot pier]

That's a good %, but it's weird that it won't let you increase the PID loop

What v of Betaflight Configurator are you using?

[vestal lintel]

latest

but i've also got the newest that lets you install this firmware

whatever v that was

i forgot tho

and it seems as if it's been uninstalled

[hot pier]

You should be using the v of the configurator that is concurrent with the v of Betaflight that you are using. In this case, I think that's 10.5.1

[vestal lintel]

alright i'll grab that

[hot pier]

v4.0.6 is old enough that there have been changes to the Configurator now that make it not quite 100% compatible

[vestal lintel]

fair

[hot pier]

All of that said, if you're still having issues, you might consider flashing back to like v3.5.7

Which was the last version before BF started moving away from F3 boards

Or, and I can't believe I'm even recommending this, if you had good results from Cleanflight, maybe just go back to that

Ew I can't believe I even just wrote that

[vestal lintel]

lol

i don't have the original config otherwise i would lol

nope, still won't set to 2.67

lemme try 1.33

nope

[hot pier]

Have you considered chucking the whole thing in the bin?

/s, kinda

[vestal lintel]

if i had the money to replace everything i totally would

as a random attempt i tried 4 gyro 2 pid

which worked on 4 gyro but set pid to .5

which is... weird

...8 and 4 works

[hot pier]

Fuck it

[vestal lintel]

ALTHOUGH i seem to be at 100% CPU

[hot pier]

Yea that'll be a problem

[vestal lintel]

and it just changed back to 0.5

[hot pier]

You should be about 30% max on the bench

[vestal lintel]

ye

4 gyro, .5 pid is like 28%

should i try lower than 2 gyro?

2 even sets it to .5

...there's no data on what PID loops work??

1.6 gyro set it to .53

it seems to be a 33% relation

ish

but it's 25% on 2

i'm so lost

it doesn't wanna go above .5

2.67 allows for .53

should i downgrade betaflight

https://tenor.com/wMmc.gif

this is ridiculous

[hot pier]

Hang on, I'm reading

If you switch your motor protocol from PWM to Multishot, do they still work?

Or even any variant of Oneshot

[vestal lintel]

last time i tried, no

i may as well try again

how can i tell if they work

just arm and test em?

the motors made 3 fast beeps on oneshot125

idk what that means 😭

[hot pier]

I think that means its in calibration mode

Are your props off?

[vestal lintel]

yeah

oneshot42 and oneshot125 seem to be the only ones besides pwm that work

didn't try brushed obv

[hot pier]

Alright, let's stick with 125 for now, that should open up some more options

[vestal lintel]

ok

do i have to throttle calibrate or something?

[hot pier]

I think so

[vestal lintel]

ok lemme figure that out

[hot pier]

You can do it from the motors tab

[vestal lintel]

i thought it was the same process as pwm

but it didn't seem to work

the 2000, plug in, 1000

lemme just try it again

[hot pier]

Once the ESCs do the beep, I think you enable motors and turn the master slider all the way up. The ESCs should beep some more, then turn it all the way down

Then once they're done beeping it should be done

[vestal lintel]

oh, that's different than pwm i think

lemme try that

i turned it to 2000 and left it there

after the beep

nothing happened

oh it says to do 2000 before plugging it in

which didn't work either...

[hot pier]

Here's the process from Oscar Liang

Calibration Oneshot ESC

The process for calibrating oneshot ESCs is the same as any other ESC.
-Ensure your ESCs are disconnected from Lipo Battery
-Ensure propellers are taken off
-Connect the board to PC and go to Cleanflight configurator, the motor test tab.
-Check “TEST MOTOR”, and Set the all motor speed to maximum using the master slider.
-Now Connect LiPo battery to your ESCs. They will beep to indicate calibration mode.
-Drag the slider down quickly, so the motor speed is now zero. The ESCs will beep again to indicate the successful calibration.
-Disconnect and reconnect battery to your quadcopter, and verify that moving the motor slider makes your motors spin up normally at the same time.

[vestal lintel]

yeah,, that's what i did

it didn't work

[hot pier]

Well then you're stuck at PWM and 0.5kHz PID loop unfortunately

Which makes things a real bitch

[vestal lintel]

yeah lol

[hot pier]

Because that's a big part of why old quads flew so poorly

[vestal lintel]

yea

[vestal lintel]

I may as well try cutting the escs out and see if I can figure out what the hell type they are?

Could give us some data as to what to do next

[hot pier]

Maybe. Worst thing you can do is re-wrap them in electrical tape. I'd be lying if I claimed not to have done that in the past

[vestal lintel]

Yep, I was gonna do gorilla tape but

No brand or anything on the underside either

They look similar to emax SimonK series

The motors are emax so I'm gonna assume they're that

[hot pier]

If they are SimonK that explains why they don't respond to anything but PWM

And that tracks with the vintage

Unfortunately without any other ID'ing marks, the best you might be able to do is look up the PN for the MOSFETs and see if you can determine just how many volts and amps they'll support

They may not take 5S voltage, they may not even take 4S

[vestal lintel]

huh, they read in blheli suite it seems

they went in programming mode at least

it's weird that it reads them as just ---

they don't read in the esc config website either

auuuuuugh

[vestal lintel]

https://tenor.com/bVg3K.gif

i already hate these things with a passion

i'm gonna try betaflight 3.5.7

@hot pier 4 and 2 works on 3.5.7 albeit with 50% load

2.67 and 2.67 works with like 28%

dropping magnet and barometer puts me around 20%, is that fine?

[hot pier]

That's fine

Esc Configurator won't read them and I doubt blheli suite will get much

[vestal lintel]

ye

AAAAAAAAND it didn't actually stay at 2.67 2.67

it just went back to 2.67 .5

it will not go over .53 no matter what i do aaaaaaaaaa

@hot pier I honestly don't know WHAT fixed it, but it's fixed

Downgraded to betaflight 3.5.7

Stock pids, 2.67, .53, flies really well

@halcyon field and you said it couldn't be done

[halcyon field]

oh boy, what am I gonna look at here

I don't know what I'm looking for, but if it flies to your satisfaction then good work

[vestal lintel]

This basically

It flies okay, this was never above 50% throttle

[halcyon field]

Tuning is subjective, so if you like it then that's good

[vestal lintel]

Well it doesn't wobble

It did once when I hit like 50% then dropped to 0

But it was maybe like a 10 degree angle and it fixed it like instantly

The only thing I'm a little worried about is that weird noise

You can hear it in the video it's like a high pitched whine