Thanks a lot for your reply Leonard - I think I understand your answers, it certainly clears up some things for me.
I put together this spreadsheet for calculating some initial values based on the new tuning guide. You will need to judge for yourself if the calculated values suit your craft.
You should probably read and understand the new tuning guide to know what these new values mean.
https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/tuning-process-instructions.html
WARNING: formulas are derived purely on eye-balling the graphs in @Leonardthall 's guide and recreating them to gain some formulas. The graphs I recreated are on separate tabs and you don’t need to look at them unless you feel like updating them and putting changed formulas back into the main tab.
- Enter your prop size in inches, and the number of LiPo cells.
- Copy/Paste the calculated values into notepad++
- Search, Replace
- Select Search mode “Extended”
- Find what: /t {tabs}
- Replace with: , {commas}
- Save As some_filename.param
Apply the new .param file using Mission Planner or similar - I find this quicker and easier than manually finding all the parameters and trying to set them without making mistakes.
Everyone is free to provide feedback, modifications or otherwise.
4 Likes
Thanks, very great work!
Thank you for sharing.
Cheers
Good work, handy, very handy.
I’ve simplified and fixed a couple of things in this updated sheet, please download and it try out while I work out how to get it functioning in the Tuning Process Instructions doco.
3 Likes
It looks a little cleaner and I like how you separated out the battery settings from the others. The new suggested settings are appreciated. I noticed that three parameter have been removed from the new spreadsheet:
AUTOTUNE_AGGR
MOT_BAT_CURR_MAX
MOT_BAT_CURR_MAX
I am just curious what was the reason for removing them?
It’s good to know someone is checking 
For those settings the defaults are the correct settings and shouldn’t be changed unless you undertake a little further investigation. I was keeping in mind this spreadsheet is for initial setup, and for first-time builds.
They’d been included before because I was tweaking them previously and needn’t have been in that old spreadsheet.
1 Like
I updated my spreadsheet again to fix mistakes in parameter names, please download a new copy
11 Likes
That is looking good mate. The values seem to work well accross the full range of aircraft that are practial right now.
Well done!
That spreadsheet is awesome. It matches the hand calc values that I do all the time. What would be super cool is… if you could export those vales into a text file that I could use to upload into MP
I really do think there you be a “How to Setup your Multirotor with AP” sticky that includes this sheet as well as a link to the tuning page.
There seems to be a bunch of folks posting their “I crashed” or “it just does’t fly right” type of threads that never set all the initial tuning parameters before their first flight.
That is just what you can do, copying the data and import them to your FC (via a quick edit in notepad ++)
I did try that, and yep… Copy, add in the comma and good to go
Here’s the notepad++ instructions
- Enter your prop size in inches , and the number of LiPo cells .
- Copy/Paste the calculated values into notepad++
- Search, Replace
- Select Search mode “Extended”
- Find what: /t {tabs}
- Replace with: , {commas}
- Save As some_filename.param
I toyed with the idea of getting the spreadsheet to generate a param file but then you lose cross-platform compatibility, and it gets quite complex.
It’s already proving difficult to get it working as an “online” interactive sheet or calculator, but I haven’t given up yet.
3 Likes
Great work so far. It’s much easier than having to look up the tuning page everytime in order to remember all the settings
Was going to suggest something in javascript to post online. Should be able to host via github pages if you keep it simple.
Hi Shawn
Question on your spreadsheet. the PSC_ACCZ_P parameter does not allow a value lower than .5 - 1.5 as the options… my current Mot_THST_HOVER is .3282355 … any suggestions on this?.. Thanks!
It’s just a warning in MissionPlanner, in the full parameters you can set any value required.
Hi Shawn…
The spread sheet works great for someone like me with limited experience- thanks again as I successfully flew a new copter today with full confidence in your settings… to you have any suggestions on PIDs to begin with prior to running autotune… based off props, battery weight etc
Thanks again
Shawn
Your BATT _ keys do not exist in AC4.0.3
I get a message saying they done exist. I well looking for them, and they are not there
Not a big deal just figured I would let you know.