[cary]

I have done everything you described...maybe I am not understanding you.

So it is normal for the servo to offset to one side when outer loop is added???  This makes no sense, because now everything leans to one side.

I have leveled everything and made sure they are calibrated.  Without the gyro everything works fine.  With the gyro there is no response from the sticks.  If I add to the outer loop, I get stick control but the servo offsets to one side. 

Thoughts???

[TheOtherCliff]

Rate mode uses only the Inner loop.
Attitude mode uses both inner and outer loops.
This should explain why Attitude does nothing until with outer set to zero.

For Attitude mode think of the control as being the inner multiplied by the outer.  With outer set to zero, the control always multiplies out to zero.

You should also be aware that if the aircraft is not level, but it is armed and stabilizing... the PID 'I' term causes a "windup" where it tries harder and harder to make it level.  Move it from level to 5 degrees tilt left and you will see that it slowly goes harder and harder to the right.  Then move it to 5 degrees right tilt and see that it winds up trying to make it go to the left.

Generally, tune inner loop in Rate mode, then leave that alone and tune outer loop in Attitude mode.

[cary]

I wanted to thank you all for the help, it is MUCH appreciated!  I am finally making headway and feel as if I am getting used to how the tabs interact with one another.

Thank you!!!

[cary]

I am still a bit confused by the gimbal.

On the input tab I have to set the pitch and yaw channels to match what the transmitter is doing.   Then I also have to put Accessory2 and Accessory1 to match those channels so that I have control over the gimbal.  Please see the attached pics.

It seems odd that I would need to use 4 channels on the input, when I am really only using 2.    Am I doing this correctly?

Also, what does the collective channel do???  I would love to use this channel for another feature, like accessory 4.  On the vehicle config you can choose access 4 and 5...But I don't see a way to coordinate that with the transmitter.

In the end I need 5 channels for: Roll/pitch for the body and roll/pitch/yaw for the camera.  Two more are dedicated to killing the motors and flight mode.  That leaves three available channels...two eaten by the gimbal control and the other by the collective.

Thoughts???

And, as always, thank you!

[TheOtherCliff]

Even without a gimbal you need at very least 4 channels of control: roll (left-right bank), pitch (fore and aft bank), yaw (rudder), and throttle (up-down).  It is highly recommended that you have a switch (and so a 5th channel) to allow flight mode changes.

Gimbal doesn't require a transmitter channel, but you can use one.  You will need to mix these transmitter channels with the signal that stabilizes the gimbal.

In my opinion, you really only need 1 control channel and a 2D (roll-pitch) gimbal.  The one control channel is up-down tilt (pitch).  You don't need left-right banking (just leave the camera level left to right), and aircraft yaw works fine for camera yaw (panning) in most cases.

Collective is a second form of up-down (altitude) control where you increase blade pitch (make both blades steeper) to get more thrust.  You need to understand about using both throttle and collective to control altitude on a heli.

[cary]

Thank you for the reply.  I am not building a drone, so my needs are different than normal.

Here is what I need:

Body - Roll and pitch (No Yaw) - 2 channels
Gimbal with stick control - Roll and Pitch (No Yaw) - 2 Channels (4 channels?)
2 Accessory motors - 2 Channels
LED's - 1 Channel
Arming - 1 Channel
Flight Control - 1 Channel
_____________________
Total 9 channels

I have a 10 channel receiver, so I should be fine.  This issue is that collective uses a channel, and the gimbal uses 4 (2 for input & 2 for control...At least the way I have it set up).  This leaves me 2 short.

Thoughts?
 

[TheOtherCliff]

It's not obvious to me in some cases which channels are control channels coming from the transmitter, and which are stabilized channels that therefore must come from the FC.

Be aware that (IIRC) 16.09 only allows the FC to know about 9 channels, but of course not every RC channel must be run through the FC.

[cary]

I am making good progress.  To add the extra channels I needed an expansion module.  I have two questions:

1. When moving the pitch channel to one side or the other, the throttle goes forward and reverse respectively.  This is NOT coming from the remote, I can look at the input on Librepilot and there is no channel value change from the remote when I move the pitch...yet the throttle goes.  Any clue???

2. Is there a way to change the ramping of a motor?  What I want it to do is instant on with input, then a slow down to stop.

I am attaching my file.  Thanks again!!!!!!!

[f5soh]

1. When moving the pitch channel to one side or the other, the throttle goes forward and reverse respectively.

Normal, you set a Pitch value mixing into the Motor output

2. Is there a way to change the ramping of a motor?  What I want it to do is instant on with input, then a slow down to stop.

You can adjust the Throttle curve, but it will be the same behaviour increasing or decreasing Throttle.

[cary]

Sorry, I mis-wrote earlier.

What I meant is when I Roll it makes the motor go.  So somehow Ch1 and Ch4 are mixing.

[f5soh]

yes, moving the pitch stick (input channel 4) changes Throttle.
Mixed result of input channel 1 and input channel 4 gives the motor result you describe.

[cary]

Sorry but I must be slow today. 

why am I getting the mixed result???

[TheOtherCliff]

I'm not sure from the discussion whether you understand what the mixer does.  Please don't be insulted if you already understand this.

A quadcopter has 4 controls going into it from the transmitter: roll, pitch, yaw, and throttle.  The key is that each control is designed (mixed) to work without causing movement in any of the other control directions.  First of all, motor spin directions alternate CW, CCW, CW, CCW and that is important for yaw to work correctly, but doesn't matter for roll, pitch, or throttle.  Say you are hovering with the correct amount of throttle and want to pitch forward.  You slow down the front motors (and speed up the rear motors by the same amount).  Roll, yaw, and thrust movements all remain the same when you do this.

So your mixer for any particular motor will make the motor speed up or slow down when you move the control sticks.  Whether it is faster or slower depends on which motor.  For pitch forward, you make both rear motors faster (and front ones slower of course).  For left roll you make the right motors faster.  For left yaw you make the northwest and southeast motors faster (think about it, this is the magic).

[cary]

Thank you for the reply.

I am not programming a quad, but essentially a car with a camera gimbal (Controllable).

So the right stick (Input 1 & 2) will move the car forward and back, and make it turn.  These functions work normally. (output 1 for steering servo, output 4 for the motor).

The left stick (Input 3 & 4) controls the camera gimbal (Output 2 & 3), this functions normally, the camera is stabilized and the stick moves the camera. 

The issue is that when I roll the camera from side to side, the car moves forward to back. 

[f5soh]

See the custom mixer above ^^

First the inputs are scaled to a -1,0,+1 range  where 0 is the neutral and -/+1 min/max stick input

Roll / Servo output
Talking about the Roll input if you look the Custom mixer into the "Roll" line, the only cell where you find a value (127) is located in first output dedicated to a servo.
Assuming the stabilization is set to Manual this means the stick input is multiplied by 127 and give output result:
Input Roll stick * 127 = Output result
Max Roll stick give a result equal to +127
Min Roll stick give a result equal to -127
Neutral Roll stick give a result equal to zero

At output a similar scaling is applied to Output result and define the value to send to the servo, according to min/neutral/max values set in Output tab:
+127 output result means 2000µs if you set 2000µs as max in output tab.
0  output result means 1500µs if you set 1500µs as neutral in output tab.
-127 output result means 1000µs if you set 1000µs as min in output tab.

Motor / Pitch + Throttle (Please note the motor is only active while the board is armed)
Now look the Reverse motor column, you can see a first value (127) in cell related to 'curve1': This one is related to Throttle, if Throttle curve looks like a line from 0 to 1 you can just assume a linear response. This means a 1:1 translation between Throttle input and values used like the Roll example above.

There is also a 127 value in Pitch line so here is the mixed between Throttle and Pitch input you see in motor output.
Full Throttle + Min Pitch give a Motor output set as zero.
Full Throttle give +1 * 127 = 127 as output
Min Pitch give -1 * 127 = -127 as output
Result is zero (+127 - 127) so the motor receive the neutral value you set in Output tab.
Since you do not move the Pitch stick, the Throttle works as expected because the 'Pitch' result is equal to 0 when Pitch stick is center.

Now Yaw stick
For some reason you set two values for the two servo outputs dedicated to the gimbal.
Those output should not be controlled directly, but using the Gimbal module: Advanced settings -> Input channel.

** In all the explanation is didn't talk about reversed channel in Input or Output tab, this of course reverse results at some point.

First understand how the mixer works, configure the vehicle and finally configure your gimbal... just a advice.
Redo the transmitter wizard, just to be sure how the inputs are assigned and do not swap connectors in receiver.