HELP with a 690 Hex AutoTune 4.1

ArduCopter Copter 4.1
1

I could use a bit of Help here, actually probably a lot of Help. For the past 3 days I’ve been trying to do a Auto Tune on my 690 Hexacopter and trying to get the Tune saved.
At first I had one of the flight modes set up with a 6 position switch on my Horus x10s Express and took off in Stabilize mode switched over to Position Hold mode. Once I got the copter where I wanted it I switch to Auto Tune mode. After about 10 minutes or so I started getting critical Low battery alarms so I landed it still in Auto Tune and disarmed hoping that I would be able to save any of the Tune’s that may have been completed. Went inside and checked the results in Mission Planner and they were all the same as when I started. Checked out a ton of posts here on the Forum and found quit a few posts stating that I should have a separate 2 position switch for High and Low for Auto Tune on channel 7 instead, so that is what I did.
Attempt #2 I pretty much repeated what I did before but this time using the 2 position switch to activate Auto Tune. I also adjusted my Battery Fail safe values to what I thought I could complete a Tune without getting any Fail safe actions that would result in a Auto Tune abort / RTH condition. Apparently it wasn’t set low enough cause after getting a critical Low Battery alert and just before a RTH action I landed the craft ‘Still’ in Auto Tune to disarm it but just as it touched down one of the ends of the landing gear made contact with a small but big enough rock that cause it to tip over. Luckily no damage but Mission Planner was still showing the default PID’s nothing changed any.
Third day, third attempt. Lowered the Battery alarm values some more if I’m not mistaken and removed the onboard compass setting cause I thought I saw a Mag field fault watching the Mission Planner Yaapu Telemetry on the screen of the Horus radio. After deleting the onboard compass I probably should’ve performed another compass calibration but I didn’t cause I thought I saw the same warning after trying this last Auto Tune attempt. Haven’t figured out how to scroll down the screen yet if it’s at all possible that is.
Anyways after a much longer Auto Tune, approx. 17 minutes and a low Battery warning even though I was seeing I still had over 15 volts of battery, I saw a Red message saying something about being Unable to perform a Auto Tune and to do a manual tune, reason unknown cause I can’t scroll down yet with the Yaapu LuLa script thing. I switched out of Auto Tune mode into Position Hold mode then Back into Auto Tune, just like Everything I’ve read has said to do, I landed in Tune mode and disarmed.
Now “Hoping” that either I managed to save any completed Tunes or by being able to check the Bin logs I can manually make some changes I can’t do either. Nothing was saved and I can’t make out what the Logs are showing.
“Hopefully” someone can look at these logs, which I have No Idea if they are the ones needed or if I posted them correctly, and shed some light on all this for me. It would be Truly Appreciated beyond belief. I’ve been working on this thing off and on for over a year now, so I may have forgotten to do a few needed changes but I would like to finish it so I can get back the 960 Hex I’m building. Being on Disability these things give me something to do with my time, kinda like a purpose now, LOL…
About the basic’s of the 690 Hex:
Frame- Tarrot 690Pro, CubeOrange and carrier board,Dual Here3’s (setup as Best), Mauch 016 PL-2-6s BEC & 002 PL-100 Sensor Board, 2- Tattu 4s 5200 mAh 35c Batteries ( in parallel ) MultiStar Elite 4006 740kv, ARRIS 40amp ESC’s, 13.25 CF prop’s.

Mission Planner version 1.3.75.1 build 1.3.7990.37522 ArduCopter V4.1.1 (01d1aa1e)
I know this was kinda a long read, I just wanted to give as much information as possible. Any and All Help would be Greatly Appreciated and Thank you in advance. Robert

2

Update MissionPlanner and go to the Setup, Initial Parameters section. Put in appropriate values for props and battery, then accept everything it offers.
Don;t change the battery related parameters if you are getting failsafes sooner than expected - check your “power brick” calibration is accurate, or change the battery. Changing those params will only make the battery worse.
It’s OK to have Autotune on a multi-position switch like you did - it’s just another flight mode whether you have it on it’s own switch or not.
Set Autotune to do just one axis per session, such as:
AUTOTUNE_AXES,4
Prepare and take off as you have been, switch into Autotune mode and wait for it to complete, then reposition, land and disarm WITHOUT changing out of Autotune mode.
Then Autotune will save the new parameters. Arm and fly with the new params :slight_smile:

It will be best to set up the Harmonic Notch Filter too. I’ll see what I can find in the logs when I get a chance.

You’ve got some good components there, except maybe the ARRIS 40amp ESC’s. They may be reliable, I’m just not sure.

3

If you’re referring to the Alt-A thing, I’ve already doe that and went with what it said, wrote those parameters in. And as far as Mission Planner goes I thought I was on the latest from a couple days ago. I just might go with doing one axis at a time but I was hoping that someone could go over my Logs and get me closer to where I need to be, reason being is the Red warning I got about being Unable to complete a Auto Tune and that I should do a Manual Tune. IDK…
Thanks for the input though.

4

A suggestion. Be more concise and provide one non Auto Tune log just flying around.

5

@Robert470 what @xfacta did was just that, he went trough the logs and posted suggestions on how toget you closer to where you need to be.

6

Put the battery level values back where they should be then start with these values. Watch for any oscillations and land immediately if there is

ATC_ACCEL_R_MAX,80000
ATC_ACCEL_P_MAX,80000
ATC_ACCEL_Y_MAX,10000
ATC_ANG_RLL_P,10.0
ATC_ANG_PIT_P,10.0
ATC_ANG_YAW_P,5.0
ATC_RAT_RLL_P,0.1
ATC_RAT_RLL_I,0.1
ATC_RAT_RLL_D,0.00625
ATC_RAT_PIT_P,0.1
ATC_RAT_PIT_I,0.1
ATC_RAT_PIT_D,0.00625

If there’s oscillations reduce these
ATC_ANG_RLL_P,6.0
ATC_ANG_PIT_P,6.0

If it flies OK try AUTOTUNE_AXES,1 for Roll
Copy the new Roll values to Pitch and do AUTOTUNE_AXES,2 to check Pitch is good.
AUTOTUNE_AXES,4 will do Yaw, but it is less of a requirement than pitch and roll.

EDIT:
Also set these before the next test flight
INS_LOG_BAT_MASK,1
INS_LOG_BAT_OPT,0
INS_HNTCH_ENABLE,1
Try hovering in AltHold for a while and maybe some gentle pitch and roll movements - let’s see that log.

1 Like
7

Thanks an awful lot. Supposed to have an hour or two tomorrow when the winds will only be about 2-3 mph, about as calm as it’ll get for the next couple days. Thanks again…

8

Ok, I managed to get a flight in this morning before the winds kicked in at around 12+ mph. I changed the parameters that were suggested and also decided to do another Compass calibration using Mission Planner. Started out in Stabilize mode and flew it around for just a little bit to make sure I wasn’t getting any oscillations before putting it in AutoTune. After a short bit I got the AutoTune completed message and flew it around again for a little bit just to see how it handled. Seemed OK so I landed it Still in AutoTune and disarmed. Got the AutoTune saved message and went inside to top off the batteries and to copy the Roll values to Pitch and also change the Autotune_Axes to 2 so that I could check how the Pitch was and do a Tune on that also. But by the time I got done changing everything and topping up the batteries to do it, it was too late, too windy.
I hope this log is correct and that I did everything as suggested correctly. For the short time I had it in the air it did seem like it was flying Much better. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish the Pitch Tune in the morning then work on the Yaw. I’m also hoping I had a long enough Hover done, I was starting to get those Low Battery warnings again and thought I’d be able to do Both Roll and Pitch this morning with a longer flight and hover after.
Also is there anything else the Logs are showing that I should do or change? All this HELP is Greatly Appreciated, Thank You…

B.T.W. not that I think it matters any but this 690 Hex has 2 Here2’s on it, one on CAN and the other I2C so I can use the Hardware Safety Switch, the 960 Hex is the one with 2 Here3’s, both vehicles setup as Best… Thanks Again…

9

When using CAN devices like a Here3, set BRD_BOOT_DELAY,5000 to ensure the CAN devices have booted up OK before the Flight Controller.

I dont understand your battery voltage settings, they don’t match a lipo or lion. If it’s a 4 cell lipo you should have:
BATT_ARM_VOLT,14.70
BATT_CRT_VOLT,14.00
BATT_LOW_VOLT,14.40
You MOT_BAT params match using a 4 cell lipo, so they are OK.

That log showed you got about 3000mAh out of the battery but the current scaling could be a bit out too. You only went down to about 14.5 volts so there was still a bit to go before a low voltage failsafe when using the correct settings.

If you are still getting a battery failsafe too early, do not change those settings - check the voltage calibration first. Then test the battery by doing a discharge on your charger and note the mAh and do a full charge and note the mAh - see if it all makes sense or is the battery capacity bad.

Now set these to get the Harmonic Notch Filter working:
INS_HNTCH_REF,0.22
INS_HNTCH_FREQ,64
INS_HNTCH_BW,32
INS_LOG_BAT_OPT,2

That autotune worked OK, you should be able to put the new Roll values into Pitch then run Autotune again with AUTOTUNE_AXES,3 for Pitch and Roll together.

EDIT
If you want to utilise the current/capacity measurement of the battery then these might be a bit more appropriate
BATT_LOW_MAH,1040
BATT_CRT_MAH,520
But you’d also want to test your current scaling - I’ve got a procedure for that when you are ready.

EDIT2
You can safely set
ATC_THR_MIX_MAN,0.5
PSC_ACCZ_I,0.44
PSC_ACCZ_P,0.22

1 Like
10

Yea, IDK what I was thinking when it came to those Battery settings, gonna blame it on a Senior moment or a case of Sometimer’s…
I did adjust them to what you had and changed the parameters as suggested. It seemed to fly really good and I managed to get both the Pitch and Roll Tune completed and “Saved” after I landed and disarmed. Still had a bit of Battery life left so I put it back up in the air and let it Hover for a little while and did a few Yaw’s, Roll’s and Pitch’s before landing it again and going inside. And even though I haven’t done a Yaw Tune yet, I can’t believe how much better it’s flying already.
Once again I’d like to say Thank You, it is So Very Much Appreciated. Robert

1 Like
11

After changing the suggested parameters and going through a AutoTune of the Roll and Pitch from the other day I thought I’d charge up the batteries again and try to do a complete AutoTune of all three, Roll, Pitch and Yaw yesterday. The only parameter change I made from the other day was the AutoTune_Axes 2 to AutoTune Axes 7.
Wasn’t able to complete a Full Tune cause I decided to land and disarm after getting a couple Low Battery warnings.
Well this morning after recharging the Batteries up again I thought I’d try pushing it a little bit more to it’s limit and ignore the warning and just keep an eye on the battery cell and total battery voltage instead. This time I managed to Complete a Full AutoTune and save them.
Once again I’m hoping that the logs I’m posting are correct and that they’ll provide the right information and that I’m going all this correctly.
Am I getting close to the end or what’s next? If everything is looking good and nothing more can/should be done what parameters do I change back to what they should be normally.
As before, I am so Thankful for the Help in this, it is Very Much Appreciated beyond words, Thank You…