I am using H_RSC_Mode 1 on both my Helicopters. My FS is No Pulse and I had never, ever a Problem.
The ESC’s both Castle Heli ESC with their Governors at work.
For a short time I used with the TR600 your Throttle curve because the YEP-ESC has an awful Governor.
When I purchased a new Castle ESC I went back to H_RSC_mode 1 and have no more problems.
During Mission, if the signal gets lost the Heli finishes the Mission (my setup) and all works as expected sofar.
I am happy with Mode 1 on my Electric Helis. The only bad RTL I had was with that YEP-ESC, ones. Chris, you have seen that video when the 6oo fell out of the sky during RTL.
Fred, why Mode 1 instead of mode 2. Mode 2 was designed for electric heli’s with a Gov. If you only have one rotor speed you plan to use then Mode 2 is a much better choice.
EDIT: Even if you have more than one rotor speed, Castle Creation’s governor allows up to 3 rotor speeds to be programmed. Then it is just a matter of changing the setpoint parameter in QGC or mission planner.
The evolution of the throttle control in ArduPilot was such that the original method was RC passthru. This is ok for scale or 3D flyers where the heli never gets very far away. But with the autopilot being able to fly waypoints at great distances from the pilot, the loss of RC is a very real issue.
So then the setpoint method was added when ESC’s with built-in governor became popular.
And then a rudimentary 3-point “V” throttle curve was added when people started flying nitros and gassers with the system.
So then we improved the throttle curve. And now we added a governor to it. In 3.7 all the throttle settings are going from 0-1000 pwm to 0-100% throttle. So to set a ESC governor for 75% you now set it to 75% instead of 750. The scaling is already being done in the code to covert it to 0-1 for use in the code, so why not change the scalars to make the settings something people understand, right?
So now that we have a decent throttle curve the throttle curve can do anything that MODE 1 RC Passthru, or MODE 2 ESC SETPOINT does. Just set a flat throttle curve for MODE 2 type control. And add idleups to it so the throttle curve can do what MODE 1 does for three-speed ESC governors. We could eliminate all this confusion with complicated throttle setup and just have one type - throttle curve with a governor. This is the way it is done in FBL units and RC radios.
The first ArduHeli 3.7 build will be like this. If you don’t have a rotor speed sensor the governor is automatically disabled. If you do have a speed sensor, and don’t want to use the governor, disable it by setting the droop response to zero (which will be the default). If you have a single speed ESC governor, set a flat throttle curve for it. Assign a three-position function switch for idleups. There is two idleup settings in percent throttle.
So let’s say you have a three-speed ESC governor, Castle type. These look for throttle of 50% for normal, 75% for Idle1, 100% for Idle2 to run the programmed speeds you have set in your CastleLink software. So you set the base throttle curve to flat 50%. The idleups are set as a percentage increase of the base throttle. So if you want to increase it by 50% for Idle1 set Idle1 to 50%. It will now run 75% throttle output to your ESC. If you want to double the base throttle output, set Idle2 to 100% increase, it will now run wide open throttle on Idle2.
If you want normal and Idle1 to both be 50% throttle, but Idle2 to be 60% throttle output, then set Idle1 to 0% increase, and Idle2 to 20% increase.
Nobody will have to try to figure out which throttle mode to use because there’s only one - throttle setup and everybody uses the same parameters, just set to whatever prime mover you got.
This is not even remotely difficult to code up. The biggest difficulty is that it is impossible to convert existing Mode 1 setups, and somewhat difficult to convert existing Mode 2 setups during upgrade. So the 3.7 release is still going to carry a lot of legacy weight and code complexity in the HeliRSC with all these throttle modes. But once users start flying the ArduHeli 3.7 builds with the idleups they’ll never look back.
Bill , Chris it all makes sense what you are laying out and explaining.
But hey, I am old and stubborn. I have tried the new throttle curve with that cheap ESC and that ESC played silly and not the throttle curve. When I got that new Castle ESC I did setup that new TR600 the way I am used to do it for years with Mode 1.
I promise I will look into change when I am not so busy. At the moment it works fine for me.
I also can reveal that this way I connect the direct drive tail with a Y cable of both ESC to the ch 8, very simple.
Fred, none of this is changed in 3.7. Just moving all throttle-related settings to 0-100% instead of 0-1000 pwm. It is what I am proposing for the future to make the throttle setup in ArduPilot more consistent with the rest of the RC helicopter world, but keeping in mind we need the autopilot to be able to have control of the throttle if RC is lost on a flight.
Chris, thank you for that, I will look into all of this.
To teach an old dog new tricks takes time.
