I’d love a second opinion on the flash logs below. New pilot here. Second attempt on maiden flight. It feels like the drone is going to flip over during take-off (see videos).
I have double, triple-checked motor order and propeller rotation (Motor A/#5 = front right of nose, spinning ccw. Motor B/1 = far right, spinning cw, etc.) Running up-to-date copter 4.5. on Hexa-X frame. Gyros tilt correctly (rear motors slow down when nose is down etc.).
Honestly, I’m not sure if the instability is normal for a maiden flight or if it’s actually about to invert. This multi-copter has had zero tunning, and the ground is not completely level at take-off. Again, it feels like it’s about to flip if I give it much more throttle, but I could be wrong, so I’d really like a second opinion before I have to go soldering a bunch of pieces back together.
I’m posting a flash log and 2 videos below. Any insight will be helpful.
The drone is trying to take itself towards level, not away. I might regret saying this, but try to find some more level ground and see how it is then. The drone is going to try and level itself as it takes off, and since you’re starting on uneven ground the effect may look more dramatic.
Watch closer to see what side is lifting up as you try. I can’t tell in the videos. If it’s the “lower” side of the drone coming up as it sits on the slope, then you’re probably good and maybe you just need to give’r. If you’re not sure, rotate it 180 and try again. If the flip follows the rotation, then your motors/props are wrong. If the tilt stays in the same place then it’s the take-off location.
@Allister your input was extremely helpful! Turned out it just needed to be level. Obviously, it still needs tuning, but I will run that again with the ‘return to home’ enabled for auto land. If you see anything alarming in the data flash log, please let me know (I’m still learning how to read these), but for now, I think we can resolve this thread. Thank you so much!
You shouldn’t even be flying that craft on defaults. Nothing good to see in that Rcout graph you posted, it shows massive oscillation.
You should start over with The Methodic Configurator.
I’m glad you got it flying, but you should take @dkemxr 's advice and start over with the methodic configurator. Those motor outputs are wild and if you try to fly with that you’re either going to crash or burn out motors/ESCs. I see you have PID values already adjusted suggesting you’ve run Auto-tune already. However without getting the notch filter set properly this is putting the cart before the horse.
Until the drone is tuned don’t trust auto modes like RTL. They add in another layer of complexity (position controller) that when un-tuned can only make a bad situation worse.
If you don’t want to use the configurator (you should…) then reset the PID values to default. Get the notch filter set. Make sure the rate outputs are acceptable, compass is calibrated (MagFit), then consider PID tuning. With the Cube Black you should be able to run the quick tune script after the filters are setup.
The configurator uploads the magfit and quicktune lua scripts to the vehicle and does other automation stuff like ensure that the FC gets resetted if it needs resetting. Not using it makes you a lot slower and requires you to read more documentation.
Once again, I greatly appreciate the advice. I have done zero tuning so far (I’m not sure why the PID values weren’t set to default). It’s baffling that I am just now learning about The Methodic Configurator, but I am currently installing it.
My plan was to use the lua quicktune script next flight, but it sounds like I need to enable notch filtering before that anyway.
I hadn’t considered the consequences of using auto modes like RTL before tuning. Really glad you mentioned that.
If I understand you correctly, it sounds like I won’t need to run the quicktune lua script separately if I use the configurator. Is that correct? What about notch fitting?
