[Filippo94]

So, last sunday I just saw a better performance due to the new blades (decided to use the new ones instead of the old ones, mainly because these were much more balanced out of the box, and were not covered in tape to get balanced), redid all the pids, but did not go too far, so had nothing to report.

Today instead there was a strong gusty wind, which kindly showed me where I was doing wrong, and thus allowing me to correct the behaviour much more precisely.

Now the cyclic is nearly perfect, it was holding its pitch and roll quite well in the strong wind, with a roll axis really fast and snappy, without oscillations or delays, and a pitch axis which oscillates when I send snappy inputs, but otherwise being pretty much as effective as roll.

Tail did not get much better, but at least it seems a bit improved aswell.

At this point the heli feels much more solid, and ready to be used as a trainer or just for fun (not much, since I'm not a good pilot), soon will post my values in the excel sheet you've created, for a beginner is a really cool starting point.

untill then, this is my last UAV, with nearly completed cyclic, and "working" tail.

Thanks again for your support

[daveapplemotors]

I am glad you got it going better. Isn't it good when it flies well in the wind??!!

Just curious. I looked at your UAV and saw curve2 source like this:
     <field values="-0.75999999,-0.400000006,-0.0399999991,0.330000013,0.689999998" name="ThrottleCurve2"/>
And my curve2source is :  < -1.0, -0.5, 0.0, 0.5,1.0 >   !?!?

I don't think you will get full pitch-- either positive or negative.

[Filippo94]

Seeing the heli not caring for the wind while I can pacefully train myself is pure pleasure

Yes, I did set it like that to get, if I remember right, 12 degrees of pitch in both directions. Already this way pitch + cyclic is enough to largely lower the engine's RPM while doing one of my clumsy flips, which you can imagine makes the tail even less effective. When I'll get the heli completely working I'll get back to the pitch and experiment with it, but for now I have more than enough push to save myself in case of danger, without killing the engine. Since I didn't want to "dirt" the setting of the Dx6i to get the right amount of pitch, I decided to use the CC3D itself to save a parameter which has the same importance of the servo calibrations, or response time. Just seemed more tidy to me, to group the heli setting all in the software, and let the pure flying configuration on the tx itself.

[Filippo94]

Making some progresses!
Today I did finally get a good tail, good enough to be able to see finally my progresses into the simulator being transferred to my heli exactly like I expected.

After having seen this video



I decided to go straight to choose the highest value of P that could be dampened with the right amount of D, and then add a bit of I of the needed amount.

It did work much better than to increase P up at the first hint of oscillation, then adding I up to not get over-corrections, and D to stop the oscillation of the snappy inputs.

So I decided to do a recording again, to show how much stable now the heli is (even if my pilot skills suck enough to hide it). I did take off, and landed, with attitude, and also used attitude in a case to save the heli, since I'm more confident with that, but otherwise everything else is in AxisLock. In the flight I mainly focus on all-directions hovering, but also do some pitch pumps, two flips, and a really shy attempt at inverse hovering.

In this week will add the current values to the excel, since now the heli is secure enough to fly without loosing control.
Now, the next urgent upgrade to do is an ESC with governor, since I can not get over the compensation differences between a fresh battery and a nearly discharged battery, the tail gets much looser at the end of the battery, and needs tighter settings, which of course cause oscillations once the new battery is plugged... Once having that, I'll keep making further optimizations to the values, having a constant RPM will surely help a lot.

Thanks once more for the help you've given to me

[daveapplemotors]

It looks pretty solid in the air. You certainly have a small place to test fly there.

I am glad you have it flying so well.

[Filippo94]

Yeah, unfortunately it is already around 32km away from home, and it is the closest I can get for now