Parameter Modding for MM?

[scro]

What about warranty or care refresh considerations?

I expect you wouldn't want to send a drone back to DJI with parameters tweaked, either via care refresh or for a warranty claim. However, simply re-applying the latest firmware would reset all parameters to stock and maybe wipe any trace of tweaking. If you crashed and subsequently couldn't refresh the firmware you might be a bit stuck.

These aren't considerations for me as I don't have care-refresh and I know my warranty is void now after crashing my MM. I disassembled it to check for water damage/corrosion inside and this required breaking the tamper-evident seals on it - that quite clearly voids the warranty. I'd expect there's a water damage indicator sticker in the drone somewhere too which may have collected a bit of rain water.

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Thanks, clever beep beeps aren't they? lol

 

[scro]

Yeah, although a lot of electronics equipment has tamper seals/water damage stickers on it nowadays. Most mobiles/cell-phones have them.

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Ta

 

[LifesShort]

I wanted to make my MM more responsive in all three modes.

I changed g_config.misc_config.follow_gimball_yaw_en from 1 to 0. The MM now is very responsive in all modes. The diagrams from Airdata show the difference. The first diagram shows rudder response of the MM prior to making the change, and the second one shows rudder response after the change. It's quite significant and very obvious when flying the drone. The MM is still very well behaved and is just as easy as ever to control. The difference is in how quickly it responds to your inputs. The tests were done in "P" mode.

Response time prior to change:

Response time after change:

 

[OregonEd]

Thank you very much for sharing this... what firmware are you on?
My MM flew very tight, extremely enjoyable, until the 200 or 300 firmware. After that, I would say it flew like a PIG! Nice job DJI... It looks like they don’t even test their updates or they are tested by totally inexperienced pilots.
I also have an early Parrott Anafi, my dream is to have my Mini flying like the Anafi.
Does anyone know if roll can be combined with yaw so that the Mini would make carved or banked turns. I believe that this would also help the MM when flying in cross winds. This would help the Mini to fly a straight line in cross winds instead of dog tracking, which should be much more efficient.

 

[awtsw90]

Just playing around with this, and the most interesting parameter I haven't seen mentioned is min_height_user. It's not something I would leave on permanently, but in some situations it could be invaluable. Setting it to 1 allows you to fly within a couple of inches off the ground without triggering an autoland or forcing you up.

 

[scro]

Just playing around with this, and the most interesting parameter I haven't seen mentioned is min_height_user. It's not something I would leave on permanently, but in some situations it could be invaluable. Setting it to 1 allows you to fly within a couple of inches off the ground without triggering an autoland or forcing you up.

...and gets rid of the embarrassing pause/jump when you go to land on your hand? How does it behave for landing? Do you need to be careful not to thump into the ground?

Looks like one I might need to try.

 

[awtsw90]

...and gets rid of the embarrassing pause/jump when you go to land on your hand? How does it behave for landing? Do you need to be careful not to thump into the ground?

Looks like one I might need to try.

I only tested it very briefly in my living room for fear of waking the children and unleashing the wrath of the wife. I will say that bumping the ground seemed possible, particularly as I was indoors with no GPS, and at one point the motors continued to idle after I had landed. I would also like to know the answer to these questions if anyone else gives it a go. I'm also interested whether the downward sensors would be less sensitive to reflections while flying over water, but I think I'll give testing that a miss for now.

 

[Korrd]

Well, I tried drone-hacks FCC boost mode on my mini today. I have the US, 5ghz only version.
The result: for some reason, signal quality gets a lot worse and range is halved when boosted
.
I suspect the mini's radio is set to a higher power level by default here in Argentina. I would, of course, need an RF meter to verify that.

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Perhaps one of you guys could put together a tutorial (typed or video (subtitled please) ) on using it?
I bet that there are others who, like me, would be interested in looking at what is possible if not actually using it but who are scared to incase they screw things up.

 

[Pericles]

I wanted to make my MM more responsive in all three modes.

I changed g_config.misc_config.follow_gimball_yaw_en from 1 to 0. The MM now is very responsive in all modes. The diagrams from Airdata show the difference. The first diagram shows rudder response of the MM prior to making the change, and the second one shows rudder response after the change. It's quite significant and very obvious when flying the drone. The MM is still very well behaved and is just as easy as ever to control. The difference is in how quickly it responds to your inputs. The tests were done in "P" mode.

Response time prior to change:

Response time after change:

This one is working great

Any other changes that we can make for better and faster performance?

 

[RogerDH]

This one is working great

Any other changes that we can make for better and faster performance?

Have you tried playing with the maximum tilt angles? A higher angle might improve the Mini's performance against a headwind, if it can maintain altitude.

 

[scro]

I've tried max ascent of 6m/s and the MM can just manage it! You gain altitude very fast! I've also tried tilt angles of 40deg and it seems to hold altitude, though the motors are nearly maxing out at times, and it doesn't always hold course - probably right on the limit with those settings. The top speed doesn't change much and the aircraft only really uses that amount of tilt to start and stop. Once up near full speed the tilt amount backs off a lot. I have seen 14.8m/s ground speed.

 

[BokiFly]

I've tried max ascent of 6m/s and the MM can just manage it! You gain altitude very fast!

?

 

[OregonEd]

Have you tried playing with the maximum tilt angles? A higher angle might improve the Mini's performance against a headwind, if it can maintain altitude.

I experimented with the tilt angle from 35 up to 60. I think that above 45 has no more effect. The MM doesn’t have enough power for a higher angle. I would agree with a maximum of 40. I hope that someone can increase the speed a little.

 

[Pericles]

Have you tried playing with the maximum tilt angles? A higher angle might improve the Mini's performance against a headwind, if it can maintain altitude.

I will try the settings that other members says that are working (40).
The weather is very bad the last 2 days, waiting for the rains to calm down.

 

[scro]

Increasing tilt limits seems to mainly affect initial acceleration, with very little effect on top speed, and hence overall ability to fight against wind. I did some flying yesterday in the lee of a hill and once out of the shelter of the hill the drone was seeing winds of around 12m/s, according to the wind estimate in the logs. This correlated fairly well with a UAV forecast of 11m/s for that location and altitude. I could see the aircraft getting pushed off course on some occasions, and I had increased the tilt limit to 40deg. It only appears to use the full 40deg of tilt on itintal acceleration or final deceleration, with tilt angles closer to 20deg when on the move.

 

[Pericles]

Where are those settings you are talking about? :/
Can you give the exact name of the command?
Thank you!

 

[scro]

You're looking right at some them in that screenshot! Those paramters that have "tilt_atti_range" are the ones to change. Be aware that firmware 0500 doesn't let you set them higher than the default values of 20 (C and P modes) and 30 (S mode). Downgrading to firmware 0400 will allow these to be pushed up to 60deg. I've not tried beyond 40, but I expect the drone wouldn''t hold altitude very well when tilting over at 60deg.