F550 will not hover with Herelink

ArduCopter
1

Hi, this is my first build with pixhawk, was always using DJI A3 or NAZA before. Always wanted to try pixhawk as it is open source.

I guess technically it is my second Pixhawk build. I made the very stupid mistake of going straight into setting this up on my 1.5 meter X8. Took the A3 pro off, popped the Kore and cube black in. Got it all setup. First flight did not go so well. After an expensive teaching moment I decided that maybe pixhawk was going to to take a bit more tinkering than an A3 pro and I should put it on something that costs less than one of the props on the X8. Lesson learned.

First off, my thumbs are trained for spring loaded sticks and I have no interest in changing that now. I can’t continue with DJI because:

  1. they suck for integrating anything that isn’t DJI
  2. they discontinued all there autopilots and the M600
  3. I need to be able to lift a payload that’s heavier than a can of beer :slight_smile:

So staying with them is a nonstarter.

SO I have started with an F550, motors, props, and esc’s are bone stock, straight out the box. I am using a spektreworks Kore, cube black, and the original Here GPS as well as Herelink for all things control related and a Tattu 4s 10000 mah 25c battery:)

I have gone through the video for calibrating the herelink. I have calibrated from the home screen drag down menu. I have calibrated from MissionPlanner. I have calibrated from QGCS. I have tried center throttle 0 checked and unchecked.

With it checked it arms at my low speed setting and stays at my minimum spin setting. I can bring it to a stable hover in stabilize, loiter, or alt hold. It will only stay in a hover if I continue to give a bit of throttle. When I release throttle it immediately descends (aka crash if I let it).

With center throttle 0 unchecked I have to hold down to arm and when I release it immediately goes to 50% throttle. This actually seems like what it is supposed to do with center throttle 0 unchecked though. I only tried that setting just to see what would happen.

I need it to come to a stable hover when I release the sticks in althold or loiter (from everything I have read those are the 2 settings it should hover in with no command inputs). I need this thing to be as simplistic to fly as possible as I have a payload to deal with and don’t have time to deal with constantly adjusting throttle in flight to stay at a set altitude. That’s fine when I am flying FPV, not for this. Also, my big X8 is freaking expensive and I was just starting to no longer get heart burn everytime it flew with the A3. I would like to minimize the amount of panic attacks I have when I fly that with pixhawk :slight_smile:

  1. mot_hover_learn is set to 2
  2. pilot_thro_bhv is set to 7

I followed every single step in the herelink setup videos
I followed every single step in the Tuning — Copter documentation

It exhibits really stable flight characteristics for the first flight with no extra tuning. It just won’t hover. Like, I bring it up a couple meters, get my thumb set and it just stays put. Was pretty stoked about that as the X8 did in fact not do that.

I have been through every arducopter conversation I could find about this issue (there didn’t seem to be that many) but could never find an answer. I tried just about every idea from those other threads to no avail.

It has to be something glaringly, face palming obvious I just can’t seem to figure it out.

According to the setup and tuning procedure it should be hovering.

Here is the link to all of my logs thus far. I think some are from my work bench, probably need to weed those out later.

I am uncertain what to try next so any help would be awesome.

Thanks,
Cory

2

I would suggest doing that now. Clicking a link full of non descript logs often leads to a click away.

3

Will get them weeded out this afternoon

4

Hi, I pulled the .bin files of the ones that were on my work bench. The rest are from flight tests. The most recent being the one where I ran out of ideas to get it to hover.

22-04-08 16-02-45.bin, last flight.

The preceding flights were testing different potential fixes I found on the forums and also letting the hover learn and save function work.

I moved all of the tlog and rlog files to a separate folder to clear the clutter from the .bin files. Not sure if those files would be helpful in trouble shooting.

thanks and again for any help

5

I just realized, should I have posted this on the cubepilot forum?

Also, is this potentially something really stupid like I just need to fly it longer for mot_thrust_learn to do it’s thing?

Should I be in stabilize when it is trying to learn or alt hold, loiter, or it doesn’t matter. I have tried all, but maybe just not for long enough?

I must admit, even though it is much more difficult to tune than an A3(at least for the first time) I am having much more fun:)

6

Possibly yes. And you need to be in an assisted mode for it to learn.
Hover Throttle

7

Hi, apologise in advance for the many newbie questions I will likely ask :slight_smile:

I don’t see assisted as one of the modes. Is that like stabilise?

Screenshot_20220409-175434_Chrome
Screenshot_20220409-175434_Chrome1080×2400 153 KB

8

Non-manual is a better description, I wasn’t suggesting there was a mode called “assisted”.

9

Lol, sorry. I used to be an aircraft engineer so am super literal when reading instructions :sweat_smile:

10

Nothing wrong with that! I design sensors that go in medical devices and Aerospace applications, I understand where you are coming from :grinning:

11

I will hover it tomorrow for a while and see if it finally learns. I am guessing that if it doesn’t hover after 30 minutes of learning it isn’t going to.

12

Right. It usually takes a minute or so. After the flight graph the log as shown in the link and see if they have converged.

BTW-Regarding Cubepilot, sure if it’s more of a hardware issue. If it’s Arducopter related you may get more help here.

13

I evetually figured out how to read the graph today.

It looks like the 2 ctuns have converged, but I will keep going, maybe it just needs a bit longer.

14

Well I ran another battery through it and it still wont hover in alt hold or loiter. Both ctun paramters seem to have converged, but I still need to hold in a bit of throttle to hover.

Does it just take a long time for the software to learn to hiver?

Never done before so I don’t have a baseline time amount to pull from.

I just need to hold in a bit of throttle for it to hover. If i let up it drops rapidly still. The amount of throttle i need to input to hover doesnt seem to be changing, but maybe it is such small changes as it learns now that it has flown for a while that my thumbs wouldnt notice the difference?

I am also only hovering at about 2 meters. I

I uploaded the log from todays hover. Have to help the kids with school now but will hover more this afternoon.

Is there anything else I should checking in the logs? Anything glaringly obvious I have messed up in hover or setup related parameters? I keep checking and rechecking and cant find anything.

Thanks again for any help, can’t wait to get this first build done!

15

I reset the copter and started from scratch today (ran through herelink setup and arducopter setup from the very beginning) with the same results. ctun_tho and ctun_thh converge and it gets easier to hold it steady, but as soon as I release the throttle it descends.

I am uncertain where to go from here.

:frowning:

16

Post a link to the .bin log of that flight. Perhaps you need to increase the throttle dead zone. Or it’s a config issue with the Herelink which I’m unfamiliar with.

17

Here is the link to the folder. The 2 logs from today (12th) are after I reset and started over.

18

So I tried increasing rc3_dz from 30 to 50 then to 75. no luck.

tried pilot_thr_bhv at 0 and 1 and 7, no change.

after ctun’s converged, tried mot_hover_learn in 0 and 1, no change.

I am going to setup my taranis on it tommorrow (hopefully, I havent used it in years and will definitely have to watch some youtube videos).

If it will hover with the taranis then it has to be a herelink issue.

19

I see 6 logs dated today.

20

Hi,

I think this one is the best https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TC_QuE5RBKNAvdWXlSUGdI3kNLLKjz1X/view?usp=sharing

I am manually increasing mot_thr_hover now to see if that makes a difference.