Scott Leisher No problem. Thank you for the good words.

That's amazing to hear! Thanks for sharing and congrats on your maiden.

Endi Hamid You bet. Thanks for the feedback and glad it helped.

SYN FPV Appreciate that. Thanks for following along.

***** You bet. Thanks for the feedback.

+Mark F No problem at all. Thanks for the feedback.

Damir Spanic No problem at all. Thanks for watching.

+KandJ Steward Cool. I've seen that one before and have been wanting to try it. I may get it for my 250 quad. Let me know how you get along with it!

***** No problem at all. The FireFLY6 is ready to go. Just need to get the nerve to transition forward. Will be doing that soon and sharing the results (good or bad). Thanks for the feedback.

***** this shows what I did: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m597a9GTua7SeGg.html Basically leave the autotune switch high and disarming will save your PIDs. If you don't want to save them disable the autotune switch and disarm. Good luck!

John Bailey That's a great question. When I did Autotune I had my gimbal installed without the camera for the exact reason you described. I was a bit concerned given the gimbal was flapping around, but it did great. From what I understand (and have read) if you get a good AutoTune without the additional weight then it will be just as or even more stable than without it. The additional weight provides more stability. I can confirm that with this method when I mounted the camera the PIDs were very dialed in. Actually, before I mounted the camera I brought the PIDs down just a bit so that they were a little less responsive. Now all this said I'm flying with a very light gimbal (Tarot T-2D) and camera (GoPro Hero3+) so it will be interesting to hear your results. I have a Sony NEX5 and gimbal, but it's too heavy for my current setup. I'm working on a bigger rig and will go through the same process described above with my NEX5. Will share my results when I'm done.

LgRc85 No problem. Thanks for watching.

Marcio Cardenas Great question. As I mentioned to John Bailey below I did this with the gimbal attached but no camera. I've read that adding weight after the AutoTune should only make the rig more stable. I don't know if that's true, but I can tell you that my setup flies very well after autotuning with the gimbal attached and no power. I'm working on a bigger rig with heavier gimbal where I will test this and share my results. Thanks for the question and sorry I don't have a definitive answer. Just sharing the process I went through and how it went for me.

Scott Thompson So good to hear from you and very cool you are flying the T810. That's awesome! The wing/tri is called the FireFLY6 and it's ready to get in the air. I just need to man enough to make the transition, which I'm planning on doing soon when the winds die down. Will definitely share my results. Take care!

courierdude I wouldn't worry about it if you like what you have. I've flown many a setup without autotuning. If you ever want to experiment just save your existing PIDs and give it a try. You can always revert if necessary.

+Pol leke Hi, unfortunately I'm not going to have access to my hexa for a few days. But I can tell you I didn't do any specific tuning of loiter other than autotune, compassmot, and what was discussed in the video. I'm not sure if autotune adjusts the loiter pids (I can't remember at the moment). Good luck with your setup and let us know how you get along.

Greyhat Infiltrator Ah very good to know. Thanks for the heads up.

Marshall Cant I to would like to know. Is it best to do a re calibration each time you go out to fly? Should you recalibrate in the field whenever you fly in a new area? Trying to re calibrate a big X8 multi rotor is really difficult if by yourself.

Marshall Cant That's a really good question. I normally don't recalibrate when going to the same location to fly. I've read of those that re-calibrate when flying a new location though. I think the biggest concern will be determining if there's any cause of magnetic interference in the field: copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-appendix/automatic-compass-declination/ If you're nervous about it then make sure you do the calibration at the field. You're going to be 300 miles away and the magnetic declination will be different. IMO better safe than sorry especially if this is a paid gig and you only get one shot. Please report back your findings. This would be very interesting for us to know.

courierdude See my response to Marshall Cant and I agree that larger multirotors and wings are a pain to re-calibrate. Would be nice to keep it to a minimum.

Sounds like a potential compass orientation issue? Check this doc and read about compass orientation as it relates to Pixhawk and not the airframe: ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-compass-setup-advanced.html That's my best guess as it relates to your problem. Let us know what you find out.

Sam Smock Ha. Yeah definitely not my intent. Trying to improve the process.

+Charlie Farrugia this is a good starting place: 3drobotics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/pixhawk-manual-rev7.pdf and as you get further into it if you have any questions let us know. I definitely recommend starting with the 450 build.

+bill alvarez Good question. I don't remember my offsets off the top of my head, but you may want to refer to this: copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-compass-setup-advanced/ "Note: In Copter-3.2.1 and later offsets are considered acceptable provided their combined “length” is less than 600 (i.e. sqrt(offset_x^2+offset_y^2+offset_Z^2) < 600). Prior to Copter 3.2.1 the recommendation was that the absolute value of each offset be less than 150 (i.e. -150 < offset < 150)."

what i found out is my high offsets were because my compass got magnetized somehow. put a strong magnet all around it in circles and demagnetized it. fixed my offsets from 500+ down to 150.

Dick Gerritsen Great question. You can remove JP1 as discussed here: copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-autopilots/common-apm25-and-26-overview/#no_power_module_but_usingservos_and_multiple_becs_from_esc8217s_a_bec_for_each_servo and that should disconnect the APM bus from the servo rail. Or what I normally do is just remove the red pins from the servo leads. I haven't tested the JP1 approach and am only speaking from what I've read....not experience.

+Charlie Farrugia This is the closest that I have: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ldeHfbGDuMq5Y6c.html Hopefully that helps you out.

+KandJ Steward Good question. From what I know the Pixhawk has a more powerful processor which in the future will be able to handle more intensive code. At some point the APM will be tapped out, but I don't know when that will be. I still fly APM 2.6 in my Bixler (my first plane ever!) and it flies like a dream. So much fun to tool around with. Let us know what you end up doing.

getting the parts together for a hoverthings quad. its a slow process. i may be asking you a question or 2.? hoping you dont mind. This is the mini pix 4 pixfalcon. hoping it flies, kevin

Just for the initial calibration is when I do this. I don't do this every time I fly. It's recommended that if you're traveling far from your normal flying location that you do the calibration do to change in declination. I just do the sequence mentioned in the video because that's what I've found to give the best results with the least amount of dot filling. It's also what is suggested in the Mission Planner calibration screen.

Every other video and explanation I have found when I used too own several APM's, said you wanted to fill as many dots as possible during the initial calibration, which I always spent well over an hour just doing this alone and didn't seem to help in stability of the copter.

Glad to hear you're making progress. I'm not sure about your problem but let me think about it some more. If anything comes up I will share what i find. Please do the same.

Yes, I realize this is a year old and I'm sure you've gotten your answer, but that's the only way to put the load on the motors so that compass mot can give the necessary readings. Depending on the size of the vehicle and clearance, I've used cinder blocks resting on the landing gear to hold it in place, but this is dangerous if you are not familiar. Building a jig with clamps to hold down the craft is another way to avoid rotating the drops, and allowing to throttle up under load.

Connor Schmidt To be honest I've never flown my Pixhawk without GPS/compass so you'd be solely dependent on the barometer. I would recommend the sonar if you want to get more accurate features like terrain following. I'll do some testing without the GPS and see what the results look like. Good luck with your build and keep us posted.

Dennis Baldwin I got it all set up and the barometer is actually shockingly accurate. I'd say with althold I get about a +/- 2" hover.

+FPV-Projects Thank you for the feedback. I'll look into covering some of this content in the future. I appreciate the suggestions.

Jeroen Brosens No I haven't but will be definitely testing it out thanks to you! I hope you're doing well and I appreciate the tip :)

Sorry to hear that. I haven't experienced that type of performance issues with AC 3.3.3 but will keep an eye out. If I can reproduce what you're seeing I'll see if I can come up with anything. Please keep us posted and I'll do the same if I figure anything out. Thanks for the comment and best of luck.

If you have a pixhawk set up AC3.3.3 then try AC 3.2.1 there is flight performance difference. Im using now the AC3.2.1 its super locked in. I really cant say why, it did surprise me.

Sounds good. Good luck with your calibration. Hope it works out.

사정환 Sorry to hear that. That's really bad performance and I would recommend looking at a few things: 1. Make sure your barometer is covered. It will normally be if your board is inclosed in a case. 2. Do a compassmot to see what the ESC interference is like 3. Make sure you've done a good compass calibration I haven't worked with the mini apm before so I don't know what results to expect. With the APM and Pixhawk I get really amazing althold performance. poshold is even better. Good luck and keep us posted.

thx for your response 1. i covered barometer with several kind of foam block and also fc fully covered with plastic housing but nothing changed 2. there are no interference of mag field 3. i did compass cali many times but its still not good i think vibration is very important factor to maintain altitude in the air. i'm trying to reduce viberation now... i experienced 3 mini apm which from alliexpress but it all have bad altitude :( so fixhawk has good althold stabiblty? thx for your precious advice

+Aslak Shallo Ha :) I don't keep one very often. Every now and then I get too lazy to shave.

Fixed it?

yes it's better now.. cg corrected.. yaw tunned. ..

yes it's better now.. cg corrected.. yaw tunned. ..

yes it's better now.. cg corrected.. yaw tunned. ..

+Ashish Faustine could you tell me your settings, I have the same frame

***** Good point. I've been using PosHold more and more lately. I like it better than Loiter and the wiki explains it well: "The PosHold flight mode (previously known as “Hybrid”) is a new mode for AC3.2. It is similar to Loiter in that the vehicle maintains a constant location, heading, and altitude but is generally more popular because the pilot stick inputs directly control the vehicle’s lean angle providing a more “natural” feel." I've setup simple mode before, but I'm not too big of a fan. If I get into trouble I always to to RTL, but can see why simple may be of some use. Great suggestion on a video for procedures when in trouble. Let me noodle on that some and come up with something. Appreciate you following along.

Dennis Baldwin thanks for the response. I like your videos. Keep it up. I actually had a scary flight recently. This is the reason for the request for a "what do to when you get in trouble" video. I had a few successful flights which were very stable in all flight modes including Alt-Hold and Pos-Hold but ended with a tip over on landing. in a subsequent flight apparently I had an out of balance prop from the tip over. I think the vibration induced by the bad prop really affected the stability on my next flight. I did an auto take off using tower droidplanner and it didn't go straight up. It went up to about 30 feet and behind me. I Switched to Pos-Hold and it became very unstable and hard to control. I flipped to RTL but didn't look good so in a panic I decided to land manually. I fought it all the way down to the ground. I looked at the data logs and the x and y accel readings were more than +/- 3, possibly as much as +/-5. In the turmoil I think I left it in Pos-Hold or Alt-Hold which was probably a bad thing. Would the correct thing to have done be to switch to Stabilize mode? Would that have even helped?

+Loray Thompson It's this one: amzn.to/1Qi6qB5a

+Loray Thompson it's not opening

Take a look at this: ardupilot.org/copter/docs/loiter-mode.html

Hi Stephan, I like AutoTune a lot: ardupilot.org/copter/docs/autotune.html Here is a video from the field: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m597a9GTua7SeGg.html Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

Nelson inastrilla I'm working on it :) It's actually the Tarot X6 hexa and is a huge frame. Testing with NAZA and can't afford A2 or Wookong so I'm likely going to put Pixhawk in it because that's my fave FC.

definitely put aa pixhack in it.