PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
Well I stripped my Gremlin down to bare build on the Delrin Josh B frame. I was helping another person sort his out so I did a really aggressive re tuning to see what kind of performance we could get out of his build that was giving him problems.
The Femto is flashed to 3.1.7, the esc's are flashed with 16.5 firmwares to start. This allows me to use multi shot which for the Femto is the fastest that can be used and still not hog up processor time causing issues. I have not tried the newest firmware nor newest Betaflight on the Gremlin yet. I am under the thinking if it ain't broke don't fiddle with it unless there is some absolute "To die for feature". On a new build I would go to the latest and greatest though so that's gonna be a choice you would need to make. Most of the stuff I do will transfer over no problem if you did upgrade.
I have done a lot of testing to find good settings that make the Gremlin a good indoor flyer and a great out door one. The rates I came up with for that I now fly on all my quads and you can literally tilt the Gremlin less then a mm at a time when using a Taranis with the M9 gimbals. They are very docile and smooth at center but will still snap 1000 degree per second on full deflection. Anyway enough yakking about it here is what I came up with a few days ago.
Pids may be different for a perfect tune on your build as they are all different but this should put you in the ball park of happiness to start. I set the loop times to 8k and 8k which is where Multi shot differs from one shots as they run best at 4k 4k or possibly 4k 8k but that puts the processor close to 50% at idle. You want ~35 % so you know you have some headroom for when you are ripping the wild blue.
The rates are set up with a very high yaw rate which is nice for racing and turning the little ones on a hair. The way the rates are set though it is still super smooth and extremely controllable with small inputs for slow indoor flying. Which brings us to the work I did for the Horizon mode self leveling. I worked that out so the transitions for auto level are not so brutish and fight you so much. Smooth starts are easy without having to force the quad to move then have to back off to keep speed down indoors. It also transitions back just as nice without that snap back wobbly where is the horizon defaults. I limited it to 10 degrees for indoor which is the lowest it can go but I really wanted like 5 or 6 degrees tops for a 3s indoor setting. You can still fly 3s inside you just have to be aware of speed which is where the rate profile I made really shines. Just be sure of your skills AND the room needed. I do not advise doing what I do and flying it in a one bedroom shoe box apartment.
When using them micro cameras with the fish eye lens I suggest ZERO camera tilt to aid in keeping yourself under control as well.
Other then that make sure the Flight controller is as close to square with the arms and motors as possible and more so that it is as parallel to the base plate as you can make it within the abilities of double sided sticky tape. I advise using the 3m red backing tape more then the provided foam tape. Make sure when you mount the camera it is on foam between the bottom and the frame as well as the back against the frame. That will cause nightmares on the gyros and accelerometers with the tiny Gremlin. I use the foam from Emax motor cases and cut to fit the camera snugly then a piece of the double sided tape across the back side where it touches the frame. If your cameras have CP antennas build a cage for them using zip ties other wise your video will be crap the first time it lands upside down. Possibly snap that pcb riser clean off like I did to mine.
I would advise a run cam micro swift so you can adjust the video to perfection instead of them crappy cmos cameras and then use a light weight vtx. The Gremlin is a strong beast so don't fuss over weight. I have had mine as heavy as 187 g and it still did well. Just ran a tad warmer then it does under 150 g.
Oh and that brings me to the last piece of the puzzle with setting throttle center to 63%. For a pilot used to flying quads the larger more powerful ones have a certain feel to them you develop to control the quad after a flip or power loop or dive. This allows for that muscle memory to be retained while having the power to "Catch" the quad more accurately in its power curve.
This probably reads like a boring book but that is all I can think of to help you get the best from the Gremlin. Just take it one piece at a time as you learn and understand more of what I said. If you need more aid I will be happy to pass my Skype account info to you so we could talk live if need be.
The Femto is flashed to 3.1.7, the esc's are flashed with 16.5 firmwares to start. This allows me to use multi shot which for the Femto is the fastest that can be used and still not hog up processor time causing issues. I have not tried the newest firmware nor newest Betaflight on the Gremlin yet. I am under the thinking if it ain't broke don't fiddle with it unless there is some absolute "To die for feature". On a new build I would go to the latest and greatest though so that's gonna be a choice you would need to make. Most of the stuff I do will transfer over no problem if you did upgrade.
I have done a lot of testing to find good settings that make the Gremlin a good indoor flyer and a great out door one. The rates I came up with for that I now fly on all my quads and you can literally tilt the Gremlin less then a mm at a time when using a Taranis with the M9 gimbals. They are very docile and smooth at center but will still snap 1000 degree per second on full deflection. Anyway enough yakking about it here is what I came up with a few days ago.
Pids may be different for a perfect tune on your build as they are all different but this should put you in the ball park of happiness to start. I set the loop times to 8k and 8k which is where Multi shot differs from one shots as they run best at 4k 4k or possibly 4k 8k but that puts the processor close to 50% at idle. You want ~35 % so you know you have some headroom for when you are ripping the wild blue.
The rates are set up with a very high yaw rate which is nice for racing and turning the little ones on a hair. The way the rates are set though it is still super smooth and extremely controllable with small inputs for slow indoor flying. Which brings us to the work I did for the Horizon mode self leveling. I worked that out so the transitions for auto level are not so brutish and fight you so much. Smooth starts are easy without having to force the quad to move then have to back off to keep speed down indoors. It also transitions back just as nice without that snap back wobbly where is the horizon defaults. I limited it to 10 degrees for indoor which is the lowest it can go but I really wanted like 5 or 6 degrees tops for a 3s indoor setting. You can still fly 3s inside you just have to be aware of speed which is where the rate profile I made really shines. Just be sure of your skills AND the room needed. I do not advise doing what I do and flying it in a one bedroom shoe box apartment.
When using them micro cameras with the fish eye lens I suggest ZERO camera tilt to aid in keeping yourself under control as well.
Other then that make sure the Flight controller is as close to square with the arms and motors as possible and more so that it is as parallel to the base plate as you can make it within the abilities of double sided sticky tape. I advise using the 3m red backing tape more then the provided foam tape. Make sure when you mount the camera it is on foam between the bottom and the frame as well as the back against the frame. That will cause nightmares on the gyros and accelerometers with the tiny Gremlin. I use the foam from Emax motor cases and cut to fit the camera snugly then a piece of the double sided tape across the back side where it touches the frame. If your cameras have CP antennas build a cage for them using zip ties other wise your video will be crap the first time it lands upside down. Possibly snap that pcb riser clean off like I did to mine.
I would advise a run cam micro swift so you can adjust the video to perfection instead of them crappy cmos cameras and then use a light weight vtx. The Gremlin is a strong beast so don't fuss over weight. I have had mine as heavy as 187 g and it still did well. Just ran a tad warmer then it does under 150 g.
Oh and that brings me to the last piece of the puzzle with setting throttle center to 63%. For a pilot used to flying quads the larger more powerful ones have a certain feel to them you develop to control the quad after a flip or power loop or dive. This allows for that muscle memory to be retained while having the power to "Catch" the quad more accurately in its power curve.
This probably reads like a boring book but that is all I can think of to help you get the best from the Gremlin. Just take it one piece at a time as you learn and understand more of what I said. If you need more aid I will be happy to pass my Skype account info to you so we could talk live if need be.
