Adjust self leveling sensitivity

[tenashas]

Hi guys, first post here. Just today I managed to download the old DJI assistant 2 version 1.1.2 so that I could get into debug and replace sport mode with full atti mode. I had hoped it would make fpv flight smoother but it still hasnt done quite what I want.

I want to adjust the self leveling parameters (if possible) or turn off self leveling entirely so that when I tilt/roll the drone either left or right, and the horizon tilts, it does not automatically level itself out when I let go of the sticks. Atti mode is close in that brakes are removed and the drone continues to drift smoothly in the direction I was flying, but the self leveling is jarring. I received the Mp2 as a gift and I'm only now realizing how cool airplane mode must have been on the MP. Is anything like this possible? My goal is to capture smoother, cinematic shots that DO include horizon tile/ fpv style footage because it's way cooler than just a stable horizon through and through.

The link here is to a video that is obviously shot on a racer fpv type drone with go pro attached and some moves you cant do with a mavic but you get the idea. Smooth side to side rolls, no auto stabilizing, etc.

Thanks for your help!

 

[brett8883]

There’s a couple things you can do depending on what you mean by “self-leveling.”

I think you mean the drone’s Attitude as in when you push forward on the right stick the back of the drone pitches up making the front of the drone lower than the back. When you release the stick the drone will return to level (in atti mode) or brake (in P-mode.) in that case there are three things in order of drastic result.

#1. Attitude sensitivity: Found in DJI Go 4 under the “sensitivity” menu of the the advanced tab under the main controller settings. (Note: on the assistant app this parameter is found in the flight settings not parameter menu.) changing this setting alone might not completely satisfy what you are looking to do but it’s the only one that DJai intended to be tweaked by the user.

#2 RC Scale. Each and every flight mode has its own RC scale which sets the characteristic of the flight mode. Parameter is something like config_normal_RC_scale, config_sport_RC_scale, ....tripod, ....beginner etc. (note: atti mode simply uses the “normal_rc_scale”.)

RC scale is between 1 and something like .15 . Think of it as the percentage of of the full range from hovering to max attitude. 1 gives you the full range from hovering to max tilt. At .89 (which is default on MP normal and sport) stick Center is hovering and stick full forward is 89% of maximum attitude. So because RC scale on cinematic mode I think is default to .55 it gives a much more fluid movement because because full stick forward is only 55% full tilt. Now lowering the RC also lowers the acceleration that’s the trade off but it will still eventually reach full speed it just takes longer.

I said there were three ways but try those and if you do RC scale remember you can adjust the controller EXP as well to get the feel you want and if those don’t work I can tell you about advanced attitude gains but those aren’t something to mess with lightly

 

[brett8883]

Sweet video btw and I’m not easily impressed!

 

[brett8883]

Rereading your post you might be looking for manual mode which is fswitch 0. The issue is there’s no auto-leveling at all and no trim for the sticks so it’s almost impossible to fly this way and nothing from keeping Mavic from tipping over which is easy to do. Read up lots more on manual mode before even thinking about this one

 

[Simmo]

Thats all well and good for the ac, but isnt the gimbal going to compensate too?

 

[tenashas]

Rereading your post you might be looking for manual mode which is fswitch 0. The issue is there’s no auto-leveling at all and no trim for the sticks so it’s almost impossible to fly this way and nothing from keeping Mavic from tipping over which is easy to do. Read up lots more on manual mode before even thinking about this one

I was worried you might say that. I found this earlier but didn't want to mess with it:

howto:parameterhacks [dji.retroroms.info]

Hopefully there is another way? I guess my problem is that I'm letting the sticks snap back to center after doing a banking turn. But even with gain and sensitivity adjustments + gentle fingers its really difficult to get a nice bank turn that settles back to a level horizon without "snapping". It would be nice if the same yaw smoothing/sensitivity could be applied to banking turns

 

[tenashas]

Thats all well and good for the ac, but isnt the gimbal going to compensate too?

not if you have it in fpv mode which locks it when there are turn left and right movements. However the gimbal does still stay level when the drone tilts up or down when gaining or decreasing altitude.

 

[tenashas]

Thought you guys might like this as well. Again, nothing I'm trying to attempt with a DJI and sensitive gimbal, but having more movement in videos during flight is amazing

 

[brett8883]

I was worried you might say that. I found this earlier but didn't want to mess with it:

howto:parameterhacks [dji.retroroms.info]

Hopefully there is another way? I guess my problem is that I'm letting the sticks snap back to center after doing a banking turn. But even with gain and sensitivity adjustments + gentle fingers its really difficult to get a nice bank turn that settles back to a level horizon without "snapping". It would be nice if the same yaw smoothing/sensitivity could be applied to banking turns

Ok you’ve got the same issue I did and I figured it out. What you need to do is set your tripod mode to be your "FVP mode" or whatever you want to call it. If you still want to have a tripod mode just copy down the original tripod parameters and make beginner mode or cinematic mode your "tripod mode." Attached are my tripod mode parameters and I almost exclusively fly in tripod mode with these.

Tripod mode offers a few things that no other mode can to achieve what you are looking for. First you can go as low as 10 on the ....tors_gyro_range which is your yaw endpoint or maximum yaw rate. The lowest maximum rate for normal mode is 50 so 10 is considerably slower. I like 12. The other unique parameter is "tripod_dyn_scale_enable=1." This will delay any drastic moves from pitch or roll position. Its subtle but its there. This will make it a little less jerky.

The other thing I have attached is the advanced attitude gains from the assistant app. These are not your regular gains and can't be controlled in the DJI GO 4 app. Read DJI's description as attached. Theres also a parameter called rolltopitch_gain you could check out. I dunno I think you've got a lot of things to try out here lol. Should be able to find the combo that gets you what you want. dji.retroroms.info is the most wonderful thing ever

 

[Kilrah]

I guess my problem is that I'm letting the sticks snap back to center after doing a banking turn.

Yup, train yourself to not do that and always "control" the flight, both in and out of the turn - at all times really.
In classic RC flight training it's the first thing you're told to train since quite a few people have that bad behavior initially.

There is no mode or adjustment that will fix that. If you want camera bank you need gimbal set to FPV mode, and you'll want the aircraft either in P-GPS or Atti.

 

[tenashas]

Ok you’ve got the same issue I did and I figured it out. What you need to do is set your tripod mode to be your "FVP mode" or whatever you want to call it. If you still want to have a tripod mode just copy down the original tripod parameters and make beginner mode or cinematic mode your "tripod mode." Attached are my tripod mode parameters and I almost exclusively fly in tripod mode with these.

Tripod mode offers a few things that no other mode can to achieve what you are looking for. First you can go as low as 10 on the ....tors_gyro_range which is your yaw endpoint or maximum yaw rate. The lowest maximum rate for normal mode is 50 so 10 is considerably slower. I like 12. The other unique parameter is "tripod_dyn_scale_enable=1." This will delay any drastic moves from pitch or roll position. Its subtle but its there. This will make it a little less jerky.

The other thing I have attached is the advanced attitude gains from the assistant app. These are not your regular gains and can't be controlled in the DJI GO 4 app. Read DJI's description as attached. Theres also a parameter called rolltopitch_gain you could check out. I dunno I think you've got a lot of things to try out here lol. Should be able to find the combo that gets you what you want. dji.retroroms.info is the most wonderful thing ever

This is very helpful, thank you! Looks like I'm getting rained out today but I will definitely give these settings a try and let you know how it goes

 

[ABLomas]

Don't think it's possible with mavic at all.
Even if you manage to get something like "gyro-only" mode, DJI "manual" mode is known as very crappy, compared to anything (even 8-bit multiwii controllers ;-) )
Micro-wobbles, no "lock-in" feeling, still limited on angles...
Another issue - gimbal "following" at such angles, it's not so smooth as you can expect and front legs also will appear in video.

I solved this long time ago in simple way - 6" old racer frame + brushless gimbal on top (storm32?) for anything you like (if you want M2P quality you can even strap RX100 on it). Betaflight "gyro-only" mode is probably best you can get and you can even have GPS-RESCUE for emergency. Downside? Only ~4min of flight time on small battery, more than enough for my needs (any serious racer will have lots and lots of batteries anyway) and ~3.1km range (or 1km altitude), and ofc need to learn "how to fly" properly.

 

[tenashas]

Out of curiosity I switched it over to Manual mode. I didn't have much time to play with it but holy hell the controls are sensitive. It turned into a lawnmower on one attempt but all good. I'm curious about the altitude climb its set to as per howto:parameterhacks [dji.retroroms.info]:

"Change your “Sport” mode -switch to unassisted “Manual” mode. Fly only on open-area you are confident to train on. Idle is +50% and the drone will climb if you don't respond with throttle down. This is essentially a RC-helicopter mode which traditionally have no FC/IMU and is solely defendant on pilot skill"

Is there a way to edit the params so that it responds only to throttle up instead of climbing by itself, or at least reduce it? I want to give manual another shot before I try some of the tripod settings mentioned above.

If I cant get it right I'll go ahead and start piecing together an fpv drone with a go pro mount for all those shots that arent worth 1500 Thanks for the help fellas.

 

[tenashas]

Ok you’ve got the same issue I did and I figured it out. What you need to do is set your tripod mode to be your "FVP mode" or whatever you want to call it. If you still want to have a tripod mode just copy down the original tripod parameters and make beginner mode or cinematic mode your "tripod mode." Attached are my tripod mode parameters and I almost exclusively fly in tripod mode with these.

Tripod mode offers a few things that no other mode can to achieve what you are looking for. First you can go as low as 10 on the ....tors_gyro_range which is your yaw endpoint or maximum yaw rate. The lowest maximum rate for normal mode is 50 so 10 is considerably slower. I like 12. The other unique parameter is "tripod_dyn_scale_enable=1." This will delay any drastic moves from pitch or roll position. Its subtle but its there. This will make it a little less jerky.

The other thing I have attached is the advanced attitude gains from the assistant app. These are not your regular gains and can't be controlled in the DJI GO 4 app. Read DJI's description as attached. Theres also a parameter called rolltopitch_gain you could check out. I dunno I think you've got a lot of things to try out here lol. Should be able to find the combo that gets you what you want. dji.retroroms.info is the most wonderful thing ever

I just went into the tripod parameters and it looks like I'm missing a bunch of the settings? I have a M2, do I need to downgrade the firmware to see what your seeing?

 

[brett8883]

I just went into the tripod parameters and it looks like I'm missing a bunch of the settings? I have a M2, do I need to downgrade the firmware to see what your seeing?

Instead of searching “config.tripod...” just search for all parameters that include the word “tripod” and let me know if you find the other ones

 

[brett8883]

Out of curiosity I switched it over to Manual mode. I didn't have much time to play with it but holy **** the controls are sensitive. It turned into a lawnmower on one attempt but all good. I'm curious about the altitude climb its set to as per howto:parameterhacks [dji.retroroms.info]:

"Change your “Sport” mode -switch to unassisted “Manual” mode. Fly only on open-area you are confident to train on. Idle is +50% and the drone will climb if you don't respond with throttle down. This is essentially a RC-helicopter mode which traditionally have no FC/IMU and is solely defendant on pilot skill"

Is there a way to edit the params so that it responds only to throttle up instead of climbing by itself, or at least reduce it? I want to give manual another shot before I try some of the tripod settings mentioned above.

If I cant get it right I'll go ahead and start piecing together an fpv drone with a go pro mount for all those shots that arent worth 1500 Thanks for the help fellas.

No that’s manual mode for you lol. That’s what I was talking about when I said there’s no “trim” on the remote controller sticks.” Typically when you would fly a drone in manual you would have a button on the remote to set the center point in flight. So you find that spot where the throttle up is enough to make the drone hover and lock it in as your “0 point.” Unfortunately Mavic doesn’t have a trim so manual mode is of little use other than a way to practice manual mode if you have no other way to. You can practice in the simulator on Assistant app or DJI Go app simulator. That’s how I learned.

It can’t be a parameter bc depending on the wind/above sea level altitude/atmospheric pressure/propellers that “hover” or “0 point” throttle will change every time you fly or sometimes multiple times per flight.

You can however adjust the EXP for manual mode.

Throttle
(in manual this is your throttle up as well as throttle forward in conjunction with a pitch or roll input): (g_config_mode_manual_cfg_lift_exp_mid_point=.5

Yaw:
g_config_mode_manual_cfg_tors_exp_mid_point=.5

Pitch/Roll:
g_config_mode_manual_cfg_tilt_exp_mid_point=.5

.5 is equally sensitive from “stick center” to max position.

Less than .5 is less sensitive around stick center but more sensitive towards max stick position.

More than .5 is more sensitive around the center but less sensitive the closer you get to max stick position.


After having said all this don’t think manual mode is gonna work. However, I actually went out today and was thinking of your post and throughly tried the advanced attitude gains and I think that’s what you really want to look at.

Turn them all down as low as they go and try it out.

Also try it with:
horizontal positioning gain” all the way down

“horizontal velocity gain” half way down from default and

“attitude gain” also half way down from default.

Also change normal_RC_scale down to .55.

Turn off obstacle avoidance and let me know what you think.

P.S. an FPV drone like the ones you are talking about are all manual always, you’ll get a trim button but there’s still going to be a steep learning process.

 

[tenashas]

Instead of searching “config.tripod...” just search for all parameters that include the word “tripod” and let me know if you find the other ones

nope, same parameters either way...

 

[brett8883]

nope, same parameters either way...

interesting. Anyway try those advanced attitude gains first anyway I think that’s gonna be as close as it’s gonna get to what you are looking for

 

[tenashas]

No that’s manual mode for you lol. That’s what I was talking about when I said there’s no “trim” on the remote controller sticks.” Typically when you would fly a drone in manual you would have a button on the remote to set the center point in flight. So you find that spot where the throttle up is enough to make the drone hover and lock it in as your “0 point.” Unfortunately Mavic doesn’t have a trim so manual mode is of little use other than a way to practice manual mode if you have no other way to. You can practice in the simulator on Assistant app or DJI Go app simulator. That’s how I learned.

It can’t be a parameter bc depending on the wind/above sea level altitude/atmospheric pressure/propellers that “hover” or “0 point” throttle will change every time you fly or sometimes multiple times per flight.

You can however adjust the EXP for manual mode.

Throttle
(in manual this is your throttle up as well as throttle forward in conjunction with a pitch or roll input): (g_config_mode_manual_cfg_lift_exp_mid_point=.5

Yaw:
g_config_mode_manual_cfg_tors_exp_mid_point=.5

Pitch/Roll:
g_config_mode_manual_cfg_tilt_exp_mid_point=.5

.5 is equally sensitive from “stick center” to max position.

Less than .5 is less sensitive around stick center but more sensitive towards max stick position.

More than .5 is more sensitive around the center but less sensitive the closer you get to max stick position.


After having said all this don’t think manual mode is gonna work. However, I actually went out today and was thinking of your post and throughly tried the advanced attitude gains and I think that’s what you really want to look at.

Turn them all down as low as they go and try it out.

Also try it with:
horizontal positioning gain” all the way down

“horizontal velocity gain” half way down from default and

“attitude gain” also half way down from default.

Also change normal_RC_scale down to .55.

Turn off obstacle avoidance and let me know what you think.

P.S. an FPV drone like the ones you are talking about are all manual always, you’ll get a trim button but there’s still going to be a steep learning process.

No that’s manual mode for you lol. That’s what I was talking about when I said there’s no “trim” on the remote controller sticks.” Typically when you would fly a drone in manual you would have a button on the remote to set the center point in flight. So you find that spot where the throttle up is enough to make the drone hover and lock it in as your “0 point.” Unfortunately Mavic doesn’t have a trim so manual mode is of little use other than a way to practice manual mode if you have no other way to. You can practice in the simulator on Assistant app or DJI Go app simulator. That’s how I learned.

It can’t be a parameter bc depending on the wind/above sea level altitude/atmospheric pressure/propellers that “hover” or “0 point” throttle will change every time you fly or sometimes multiple times per flight.

You can however adjust the EXP for manual mode.

Throttle
(in manual this is your throttle up as well as throttle forward in conjunction with a pitch or roll input): (g_config_mode_manual_cfg_lift_exp_mid_point=.5

Yaw:
g_config_mode_manual_cfg_tors_exp_mid_point=.5

Pitch/Roll:
g_config_mode_manual_cfg_tilt_exp_mid_point=.5

.5 is equally sensitive from “stick center” to max position.

Less than .5 is less sensitive around stick center but more sensitive towards max stick position.

More than .5 is more sensitive around the center but less sensitive the closer you get to max stick position.


After having said all this don’t think manual mode is gonna work. However, I actually went out today and was thinking of your post and throughly tried the advanced attitude gains and I think that’s what you really want to look at.

Turn them all down as low as they go and try it out.

Also try it with:
horizontal positioning gain” all the way down

“horizontal velocity gain” half way down from default and

“attitude gain” also half way down from default.

Also change normal_RC_scale down to .55.

Turn off obstacle avoidance and let me know what you think.

P.S. an FPV drone like the ones you are talking about are all manual always, you’ll get a trim button but there’s still going to be a steep learning process.

Thanks for your help, I'll give these settings a try as well

 

[brett8883]

Thanks for your help, I'll give these settings a try as well

So I’ve discovered something and you won’t like it... DJIs discription of “FPV” mode and that it “locks the gimbal to the orientation of the aircraft” is inaccurate.

I had kinda suspected this but DJI is clear in the documentation so I just took them at their word. What got me thinking was that I know the gimbal’s IMU is separate from the aircraft IMU and I noticed that when FPV mode my feed from the gimbal seems to tilt more aggressively than the aircraft itself. Sure enough “FPV” mode is just a software emulation which tilts the gimbal based on roll commands from the right stick (mode 2) and has nothing to do with the aircraft frame. It’s kinda like how yaw follow works where the gimbal yaws in anticipation of the aircraft yawing.

This could potentially be a good thing though because software should be adjustable and there are a few things I’m looking at but as of now I have no solutions for this.