PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
There has been more then a few new builders and pilots having trouble keeping track of setting up their quads recently with all the changes. Several have asked for a basic order or process for setting up a quad.
This will be a walk thru of setting up a quad copter. It is not a build walk thru even though parts of the build process are mentioned. It will be a generic process as the tech is moving too fast to be specific about various makes of flight controllers, esc's, and motors. More then likely there will be issues along the way in the set up process and at some point if this is received well I will do a trouble shooting article at a later date. If you are reading this for trouble shooting purposes I suggest you disconnect any thing other then the pdb, the flight controller, the esc's and the motors until you confirm the core all works as it should.
First thing to do is to read and follow the flight controllers requirements for drivers and connect the flight controller to the computer. Doing this before the build will make sure that the controller does in fact work and communicate but also lets you upgrade it and have it ready to go when the rest of the setup up is done. ALWAYS flash a new controller to the latest stable firmware.
From this point you can either build the rest of the electronics off of the processor on the bench like is the easiest way to work with the new Gremlin sized micros or for larger kits build it right to the frame where it will be easier to custom fit parts and wires. Connecting the esc's is next so pay close attention to polarities and where signal wires are attached to the flight controller.
Once the esc's have been added next will come the motors. For my builds I make sure the wires come straight off the motors and do not cross. It makes a neater build and will be less likely to get tangled and stress the wires. Most motor rotation is controlled by a jumper pad on the esc or straight thru the esc software so crossing wires is no longer a necessity.
Now it is time to power up the drive train to check motor rotation and flash esc's to current firmware. NEVER apply power from a battery for the first time with out using a smoke stopper! At this point you may have to select the protocol for the esc's to what they are flashed to from the factory in the gui. You can flash to a different protocol supported by your esc's after you have made the initial connection and know they are all talking to the flight controller.
Once you have powered the drive train and found no problems its time to do a few quick checks. You can now remove the smoke stopper from the set up. Start by connecting the flight controller back up to the computer with the usb cable. Open what ever gui you are using and connect to the flight controller. The first thing we will check is the motor directions and ensure that each motor reacts to its proper place according to the flight controller. Make sure your propellers are NOT on
your motors. Plug the battery in to the drive train and let the flight controller boot up. Pay attention to the tones the esc's make when you do this as they can give information to their status at this time.
Once things are powered up go to the motors tab and check the box that allows you to control the motors from the gui. Take a piece of paper for this step and write down the numbers we get from this part of the set up. Starting with motor number one slider raise it up to about a quarter throttle to make sure it spins up. You will also check to make sure that it is turning the proper direction at this point by either lightly touching the bell with a finger or by the tape on the shaft method.
Write down if it is correct or needs to be reversed. Repeat this process for the other three motors. Again make sure that the correct motor turns with each of the sliders.
Next we will find the minimum throttle for each motor by using the slider. I find it easier to highlight the slider and use the up arrow key to move it in small increments so I am more accurate. Use the up arrow key until the motor spins smooth and not jerky or twitchy in any way. Write that number down. Repeat that with the other three motors. Now that you have that number take the highest one of the four and add 10 points to it to account for weight of the props. This will be entered on the configuration page as the minimum throttle.
Now comes time to flash the esc's to current firmware and make any changes to motor rotation needed. Some older esc's may not be able to be flashed thru the flight controller and I will assume you have ones that can be. This step can be skipped providing you are sure all four esc's are using the same firmware AND revision. If you have ones that can be follow the on screen directions in your gui for flashing the esc's and again use the latest firmware that matches your specific esc's.
After they are flashed and the drive train reboots go back and check to make sure each motor turns. The next step is to calibrate the esc's providing you are not using Dshot protocols as this is not necessary with them. To do this you connect to the gui un powered by a battery. Go to the motors tab and check the box. Again NO props! Slide the main motor slider all the way to the top. Now you can connect the battery and listen for the esc's to play a tune. As soon as they do slide the main motor slider back to zero throttle. At this point your esc's will reboot and should be calibrated. Use the main slider and check to make sure all four motors start at the same time. If they do not go back and repeat the process.
At this point you need to open bl heli to change any wrong motor directions or to solder the jumper pads on the esc's themselves. IF for some reason you still have old esc's that use neither of these methods then you must swap any two of the motor wires on your esc's by un-soldering and reattaching them in the new positions
Now that all that works its time to connect a receiver and get that all lined out. Depending on your receiver will depend on how to connect to the flight controller so look in the flight controllers pdf manual for specifics on how to set yours up. Some are simple some require you to select a different uart in the gui to make them talk. So far I think it is only Spectrum that has to use different uart to communicate and from what I have read it is usually on uart three. Again read the pdf to determine how to connect yours up properly.
Once you have your receiver connected plug in the usb and go to the configuration page in the gui and select the proper protocol from the pull down menu on the upper left side of the page. SAVE that THEN go to the receiver tab. I go back and check to make sure it did save and then continue back on the receiver tab. On the receiver page you will be able to select the channel mapping for the receiver. I always set mt gear to TAER when I get it so its all the same. Just make sure that what ever you select matches what you have set in your radio. Next turn on your radio and wiggle the sticks to make sure things are talking and that throttle is throttle yaw is yaw and so forth. If they are not it more then likely is that you do not have the same channel mapping set between them.
The next step is to set centers and end points between the radio and the flight controller. To do this you will use the sub trims in your radio to get each channel as close to 1500 as possible. I do this for my switches on the aux channels I use as well. Not a necessity but will ensure no issues further in the process. Now you will notice in most cases you can not get things exactly to 1500 and that the numbers bounce a bit. This is due to analog electronics not being as precise as digital and more susceptible to wear. Do not worry over it as long as you are within a point or two of 1500. After this we will use travel adjustments or end points on some radios to set the minimums for each channel to 1000 and the maximums to 2000.
Some radios will be as high as 1100 and as low as 1900 to start so quite an adjustment will be needed. Some radios
you may have to use what is called extended trims to reach the proper 1000 and 2000 end points. Just make sure you get these set properly or you will have other issues later in the set up. In EVERY case remember to NEVER use the manual trims on the radio by your sticks once these are set. If your radio has the capability like the Taranis go ahead and disable them altogether to prevent accidental changes later on. If your center numbers are really bouncing around 1500and are more then two points difference you may need to set the dead zones to keep the quad from drifting from this happening. Most gui's now days have this feature older ones may not.
Now that you have your channel assignments and proper settings done we can move on to switches. Usually quad copters use receivers with six channels or more so we can use switches to do things with. Some of you may only have four channels but you can still fly with just four it will just mean you do not have certain abilities to turn things on and off.
I set Aux 1 which will be channel five to be my arm switch. This is the first one and is a must if you have the channels to use. Stick arming can actually disarm the quad doing certain maneuvers while in the air. I have a Taranis so I mapped mine to a three position switch and set it to arm high. I use the switch right above the pitch stick so Its a mere flick of the finger to disarm as fast as possible since I use the pinch method to fly. I use a 3 position as it adds a little safety net in case I
accidentally bump the arm switch. Next I set up a flight mode switch on aux two where the low position will be horizon mode (with out air mode) as an emergency mode or early learning for fpv take off and landing. The mid position will be acro mode (nothing set to the mid position). The high position will be acro mode as well but I also map air mode to the same
aux switch in the high position so I have acro with air mode. This allows me to do tricks and stuff with the high position but allows for a no bounce landing while still in acro mode in the mid position.
Finally we set up fail safe. Each receiver handles things differently. For a race / free style quad you want the quad to stop moving as fast as possible. This means probably damaging the quad but that is far better then it zooming around trying to do something else. Make sure you set it so when the link between your radio and the quad is broken the quad immediately shuts off. Test this several times with the props off by spinning the motors with radio control and then shutting the radio off. If it does anything but shut off the quad you need to go back and check settings until you can get this to work before ever trying to fly.
At this point it is time to put props on and test fly / maiden your quad to make sure things are correctly set up.
The first thing I do after powering on the quad is make sure there is ample room for the quad to move around as sometimes the stock tune does not play well with some setups or gear. Then I will step back a good ten feet or more before arming the quad in case some freak incidence occurs and it goes bonkers. the first thing I lok at are all the propellers spinning smoothly and not twitching. If they are twitching take not and remember to raise minimum throttle value another 10 points. If they are we will move to the next step.
Set your mode switch to acro with no air mode. Raise the throttle SLOWLY until you see the quad become light but not lift off the ground. Pitch forward a little and make sure the quad leans forward. tilt it back and make sure it rocks back to center. Do the same thing with Roll. Make sure right input is a right movement and left is left movement. Then you do the same with yaw to make sure left is left and so forth.
If all that is correct it is time to do your first test hop. Set the mode you want to try with on the mode switch. I suggest to stay in acro with out air mode for this. Slowly raise the throttle and watch the quad is starting to get light but stay level. If it is not make corrections gently with pitch and roll commands until it looks like it wants to go straight up. once it looks like it is sitting level apply more throttle and get it into a hover. Keep in mind that ground effect will make it move around so you have to be a little brave and get it up at least a foot off the ground to get out of that condition. Keep making gentle corrections to keep the quad level. Then gently set it back down.
Depending how smoothly that first hp went will determine if it is stable enough to start flying or if you need to change some settings. If teh quad was all wobbly with out your control inputs then some de-tuning needs to be done. If it got off the ground and followed what you made it do when moving the sticks then you can start flying. If it felt twitchy and really fast reacting with little stick movements this is normal. All you need to do is set a fair amount of expo. I do it right in the radio at first as I can adjust it in the field as I get the quad more tuned to how I want it to fly. I find setting between 40 and 60 % exponential on pitch and roll a good place to start depending on your skill, nerves, and confidence. you can always raise or lower it at any time. Besides once you have the quad all tuned you will set the expo directly on the flight controiller as that won't change once you find where you want it to be.
If this helps people and goes over well with the community I will also write up a general troubleshooting guide as well as tips for safe electronics handling and solder techniques as I see a lot of bad habits and methods in recent build videos that have high potential to create problems.
Once again this is how I do things and do not expect to debate things. I will however accept things to add if you guys think about BASIC things to help.
This will be a walk thru of setting up a quad copter. It is not a build walk thru even though parts of the build process are mentioned. It will be a generic process as the tech is moving too fast to be specific about various makes of flight controllers, esc's, and motors. More then likely there will be issues along the way in the set up process and at some point if this is received well I will do a trouble shooting article at a later date. If you are reading this for trouble shooting purposes I suggest you disconnect any thing other then the pdb, the flight controller, the esc's and the motors until you confirm the core all works as it should.
First thing to do is to read and follow the flight controllers requirements for drivers and connect the flight controller to the computer. Doing this before the build will make sure that the controller does in fact work and communicate but also lets you upgrade it and have it ready to go when the rest of the setup up is done. ALWAYS flash a new controller to the latest stable firmware.
From this point you can either build the rest of the electronics off of the processor on the bench like is the easiest way to work with the new Gremlin sized micros or for larger kits build it right to the frame where it will be easier to custom fit parts and wires. Connecting the esc's is next so pay close attention to polarities and where signal wires are attached to the flight controller.
Once the esc's have been added next will come the motors. For my builds I make sure the wires come straight off the motors and do not cross. It makes a neater build and will be less likely to get tangled and stress the wires. Most motor rotation is controlled by a jumper pad on the esc or straight thru the esc software so crossing wires is no longer a necessity.
Now it is time to power up the drive train to check motor rotation and flash esc's to current firmware. NEVER apply power from a battery for the first time with out using a smoke stopper! At this point you may have to select the protocol for the esc's to what they are flashed to from the factory in the gui. You can flash to a different protocol supported by your esc's after you have made the initial connection and know they are all talking to the flight controller.
Once you have powered the drive train and found no problems its time to do a few quick checks. You can now remove the smoke stopper from the set up. Start by connecting the flight controller back up to the computer with the usb cable. Open what ever gui you are using and connect to the flight controller. The first thing we will check is the motor directions and ensure that each motor reacts to its proper place according to the flight controller. Make sure your propellers are NOT on
your motors. Plug the battery in to the drive train and let the flight controller boot up. Pay attention to the tones the esc's make when you do this as they can give information to their status at this time.
Once things are powered up go to the motors tab and check the box that allows you to control the motors from the gui. Take a piece of paper for this step and write down the numbers we get from this part of the set up. Starting with motor number one slider raise it up to about a quarter throttle to make sure it spins up. You will also check to make sure that it is turning the proper direction at this point by either lightly touching the bell with a finger or by the tape on the shaft method.
Write down if it is correct or needs to be reversed. Repeat this process for the other three motors. Again make sure that the correct motor turns with each of the sliders.
Next we will find the minimum throttle for each motor by using the slider. I find it easier to highlight the slider and use the up arrow key to move it in small increments so I am more accurate. Use the up arrow key until the motor spins smooth and not jerky or twitchy in any way. Write that number down. Repeat that with the other three motors. Now that you have that number take the highest one of the four and add 10 points to it to account for weight of the props. This will be entered on the configuration page as the minimum throttle.
Now comes time to flash the esc's to current firmware and make any changes to motor rotation needed. Some older esc's may not be able to be flashed thru the flight controller and I will assume you have ones that can be. This step can be skipped providing you are sure all four esc's are using the same firmware AND revision. If you have ones that can be follow the on screen directions in your gui for flashing the esc's and again use the latest firmware that matches your specific esc's.
After they are flashed and the drive train reboots go back and check to make sure each motor turns. The next step is to calibrate the esc's providing you are not using Dshot protocols as this is not necessary with them. To do this you connect to the gui un powered by a battery. Go to the motors tab and check the box. Again NO props! Slide the main motor slider all the way to the top. Now you can connect the battery and listen for the esc's to play a tune. As soon as they do slide the main motor slider back to zero throttle. At this point your esc's will reboot and should be calibrated. Use the main slider and check to make sure all four motors start at the same time. If they do not go back and repeat the process.
At this point you need to open bl heli to change any wrong motor directions or to solder the jumper pads on the esc's themselves. IF for some reason you still have old esc's that use neither of these methods then you must swap any two of the motor wires on your esc's by un-soldering and reattaching them in the new positions
Now that all that works its time to connect a receiver and get that all lined out. Depending on your receiver will depend on how to connect to the flight controller so look in the flight controllers pdf manual for specifics on how to set yours up. Some are simple some require you to select a different uart in the gui to make them talk. So far I think it is only Spectrum that has to use different uart to communicate and from what I have read it is usually on uart three. Again read the pdf to determine how to connect yours up properly.
Once you have your receiver connected plug in the usb and go to the configuration page in the gui and select the proper protocol from the pull down menu on the upper left side of the page. SAVE that THEN go to the receiver tab. I go back and check to make sure it did save and then continue back on the receiver tab. On the receiver page you will be able to select the channel mapping for the receiver. I always set mt gear to TAER when I get it so its all the same. Just make sure that what ever you select matches what you have set in your radio. Next turn on your radio and wiggle the sticks to make sure things are talking and that throttle is throttle yaw is yaw and so forth. If they are not it more then likely is that you do not have the same channel mapping set between them.
The next step is to set centers and end points between the radio and the flight controller. To do this you will use the sub trims in your radio to get each channel as close to 1500 as possible. I do this for my switches on the aux channels I use as well. Not a necessity but will ensure no issues further in the process. Now you will notice in most cases you can not get things exactly to 1500 and that the numbers bounce a bit. This is due to analog electronics not being as precise as digital and more susceptible to wear. Do not worry over it as long as you are within a point or two of 1500. After this we will use travel adjustments or end points on some radios to set the minimums for each channel to 1000 and the maximums to 2000.
Some radios will be as high as 1100 and as low as 1900 to start so quite an adjustment will be needed. Some radios
you may have to use what is called extended trims to reach the proper 1000 and 2000 end points. Just make sure you get these set properly or you will have other issues later in the set up. In EVERY case remember to NEVER use the manual trims on the radio by your sticks once these are set. If your radio has the capability like the Taranis go ahead and disable them altogether to prevent accidental changes later on. If your center numbers are really bouncing around 1500and are more then two points difference you may need to set the dead zones to keep the quad from drifting from this happening. Most gui's now days have this feature older ones may not.
Now that you have your channel assignments and proper settings done we can move on to switches. Usually quad copters use receivers with six channels or more so we can use switches to do things with. Some of you may only have four channels but you can still fly with just four it will just mean you do not have certain abilities to turn things on and off.
I set Aux 1 which will be channel five to be my arm switch. This is the first one and is a must if you have the channels to use. Stick arming can actually disarm the quad doing certain maneuvers while in the air. I have a Taranis so I mapped mine to a three position switch and set it to arm high. I use the switch right above the pitch stick so Its a mere flick of the finger to disarm as fast as possible since I use the pinch method to fly. I use a 3 position as it adds a little safety net in case I
accidentally bump the arm switch. Next I set up a flight mode switch on aux two where the low position will be horizon mode (with out air mode) as an emergency mode or early learning for fpv take off and landing. The mid position will be acro mode (nothing set to the mid position). The high position will be acro mode as well but I also map air mode to the same
aux switch in the high position so I have acro with air mode. This allows me to do tricks and stuff with the high position but allows for a no bounce landing while still in acro mode in the mid position.
Finally we set up fail safe. Each receiver handles things differently. For a race / free style quad you want the quad to stop moving as fast as possible. This means probably damaging the quad but that is far better then it zooming around trying to do something else. Make sure you set it so when the link between your radio and the quad is broken the quad immediately shuts off. Test this several times with the props off by spinning the motors with radio control and then shutting the radio off. If it does anything but shut off the quad you need to go back and check settings until you can get this to work before ever trying to fly.
At this point it is time to put props on and test fly / maiden your quad to make sure things are correctly set up.
The first thing I do after powering on the quad is make sure there is ample room for the quad to move around as sometimes the stock tune does not play well with some setups or gear. Then I will step back a good ten feet or more before arming the quad in case some freak incidence occurs and it goes bonkers. the first thing I lok at are all the propellers spinning smoothly and not twitching. If they are twitching take not and remember to raise minimum throttle value another 10 points. If they are we will move to the next step.
Set your mode switch to acro with no air mode. Raise the throttle SLOWLY until you see the quad become light but not lift off the ground. Pitch forward a little and make sure the quad leans forward. tilt it back and make sure it rocks back to center. Do the same thing with Roll. Make sure right input is a right movement and left is left movement. Then you do the same with yaw to make sure left is left and so forth.
If all that is correct it is time to do your first test hop. Set the mode you want to try with on the mode switch. I suggest to stay in acro with out air mode for this. Slowly raise the throttle and watch the quad is starting to get light but stay level. If it is not make corrections gently with pitch and roll commands until it looks like it wants to go straight up. once it looks like it is sitting level apply more throttle and get it into a hover. Keep in mind that ground effect will make it move around so you have to be a little brave and get it up at least a foot off the ground to get out of that condition. Keep making gentle corrections to keep the quad level. Then gently set it back down.
Depending how smoothly that first hp went will determine if it is stable enough to start flying or if you need to change some settings. If teh quad was all wobbly with out your control inputs then some de-tuning needs to be done. If it got off the ground and followed what you made it do when moving the sticks then you can start flying. If it felt twitchy and really fast reacting with little stick movements this is normal. All you need to do is set a fair amount of expo. I do it right in the radio at first as I can adjust it in the field as I get the quad more tuned to how I want it to fly. I find setting between 40 and 60 % exponential on pitch and roll a good place to start depending on your skill, nerves, and confidence. you can always raise or lower it at any time. Besides once you have the quad all tuned you will set the expo directly on the flight controiller as that won't change once you find where you want it to be.
If this helps people and goes over well with the community I will also write up a general troubleshooting guide as well as tips for safe electronics handling and solder techniques as I see a lot of bad habits and methods in recent build videos that have high potential to create problems.
Once again this is how I do things and do not expect to debate things. I will however accept things to add if you guys think about BASIC things to help.
