Practical PID Tuning - Part 9 - KISS Alien

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In part 9 of the series, I finally get some stick time on a KISS copter. I know lots of you have been waiting for this!
Parts List:
ImpulseRC Alien frame
Emax RS2205/2300kv motors
KISS FC
KISS 24 amp ESCs
KingKong 5x4x3 props

[@SmokinMesa]

So useful (as your other tuning vids). Been trying to tune out very similar noises/oscillations on my KISS Alien, so massively interesting. Thanks

[@meralharbes]

Amazing how far you have come since Oct. 2016. You are a great enrichment to the entire FPV Communy, Joshua Bardwell!

[@ken-kamm]

Glad to see you tried out KISS again and now you see why many of us are really liking it.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+Kenneth Kammerer I never doubted why people like it. All my complaints still stand... Show me how to arm with the middle position of a three position switch with KISS. I know how to do it, but look at the hoops you have to jump through. Ugh.

[@ken-kamm]

BF has a different set of hoops to jump through, but hoops nonetheless. 😉

[@lcurole]

FinalGlide did complain about that and in RC30+ you can configure the modes like betaflight.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

This confirms my assertion that eventually KISS will work in all of the cleanflight / betaflight features it removed in the name of "simple". Will it still be "simple" at that point, or just different.

[@ken-kamm]

Joshua, that's a great question. It flies well, that's why I use it.

[@GiacomolyisExtra]

This is a bit of a labored analogy but the best way I can describe kiss rates is like a scratch spin in figure skating. It enters very controlled and graceful, gets really tight and precise in the middle of the move, then exits in the same graceful fashion in entered with. It feels really good on the sticks. I wonder if there is any way to tweak the rates in Betaflight to mimic this.

[@David__]

Thanks Joshua... Very interesting to see the comparison & tuning approach. Wish I lived closer to you to loan you my quad & have it returned all nicely tuned :)

[@lokisdream8438]

Well done JB. Very thorough.

[@2253glen]

Great vid. I went from Baseflight ZMR 250 Naze to full Kiss Alien 5' and was amazed how much easier tuning was. Of course I've only been in it a yr, so I probably made a lot of mistakes in the beginning. It just seemed like the Kiss FC flew incredible right out of the box. No drama. I did the Rotor Riot Steele build exactly off KZbin. Currently I'm using about 85% of Steele's pids. Perfect for my level. What a lot of people don't realize is every little thing makes a difference. And even if you copy a build perfectly, it's no guarantee, right? Anyway glad you got to check out kiss.

[@lucasg2504]

Finally the kiss is so hard to tune since it's different for betaflight, but now u made it easy

[@PinchTune]

One more thing. I see 1.02 in the GUI there. The difference when flying RC29 on 1.03 in the ESCs is night and day. I did a video talking about it for my QAVKISS.

[@sqwert654]

Since the KISS FW firmware now makes it easy to calibrate ESC's I will give the KISS FC a go on my Kraken 3"

[@jam3s121]

@12:26 Raising D two full points is actually a lot in kiss from my experience. I would of done 10.5 but it seemed to help. Those pids are similiar to my kiss qav-r

[@WKfpv]

Indeed I've been waiting for this. This was a great video.

[@pouyamohtat8132]

I hope U tell us more about the kiss vs bf feel and performance... Ur honest opinion matters a lot because not all of us can test for ourselfs!

[@sqwert654]

Have a couple of KISS Fc siting here for months, might try it on this 5" build. Wanting a smooth acro build. The reports of the "dead duck" issue had put me off. But I don't have kiss esc's so maybe not.

[@rafalvolks]

Filter should be "OFF" for that frame that's what probably coursing shattering in motors. As mentioned use RC29 FW.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Surprised to hear you imply that the frame is the primary determinant of how much filtering you need. Seems like motors and props should have a lot more to do with it.

[@rafalvolks]

Alien is a very stiff frame Emax RS2205 are very well balanced motor and this combo will be very happy with filter OFF for the very best performance less KingKong props are really really sh!t. Generally speaking yes you right but frame play a big factor in it.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+Rafal Raf Prusinowski well, well just have to disagree especially about kingkong props.

[@rafalvolks]

That was more of a question about KK props as I don't have any experience with them but newer mind +Joshua Bardwell

[@mickyv3308]

When I Yaw and Roll to bank a sharp turn I do notice I am experiencing some drifting. Seems to drift slightly backwards and towards the side of whichever way I am turning. What can I do to get that under control and make it feel tighter? I am running Kiss FC and Kiss ESC on Alien rr5 frame. Everything updated to latest firmware. Also, thank you for this channel Josh. You, by far, have the best and most thorough explanations for everything you do. And you deliver it in a very consumable way so even n00bs like me can follow along lol. You deserve way more subs than you have.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Try raising yaw P gain first and see if that sharpens things up. Possibly roll P gain too but do yaw first.

[@FarmerFpv]

what I forgot to say in my other comment was this is a great video. also it's hard to hear what you are hearing through a mic. I have a feeling this quad was made for you as well LOL

[@MrStevegibb]

Maybe some day you can get your hands on some kiss 24 amp esc's and see what you think compared to blheli_s on betaflight.

[@Ozem_Israel]

Stephen Gibb says kiss 24amp n description

[@PaulHilgeman]

So, I love the footage that comes from people with KISS FCs. The question is - how do we emulate this on Betaflight? I can see exactly what you mean with how it enters and exits moves so smoothly, so there is definitely something with the way stick inputs are handled. It seems like there is a deadband that most of us dont run on center of the stick too... thoughts? Maybe it is just a severe expo curve for the first 10us on both sides of center...

[@JoshuaBardwell]

I would try playing with super expo and expo to see if you could emulate the curve. But curves alone are not going to fully emulate this I don't think. I would guess that KISS is doing something with dynamic adjustment of P to achieve this sort of smoothness. Perhaps adjusting Betaflight 3.0 P term PID relaxation slider will help. The bottom line is that you could play with Betaflight for hours to try to achieve this, or just get KISS. Personally, I still like Betaflight because I feel that it has a wider tuning envelope. I can get an ultra sharp racing tune or an ultra soft freestyle tune or anything in between. But it's frankly premature to say that after only flying one KISS build.

[@PaulHilgeman]

Agree, but I have about 3 F3 flight controllers laying around and 0 KISS FCs laying around.... Also, does the Iterm seem strong? I think people tend to leave it along on BF3, but from the visuals, I often see a litte wandering, KISS I never observe that.

[@HerbsmanRevs]

Josh, have you flown a quad with bF3 and KISS24A ESCs? IMO it's the best combo. You get all the sharpness of the KISS ESCs but with the flexibility and reliability of bF FW. Boris has worked a lot of the KISS 'character' in to bF anyway. Glad you finally had a fly of a fully KISSed setup. I tried it for 4 months but in the end the issues outweighed the benefits and I went back to bF, but I still run their ESCs.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

I haven't. And I'm not sure I will. At the end of the day, KISS strikes me as different but not better than Betaflight. So I'll stick with what I know. Looking forward to trying Raceflight to see if it's radically better. But honestly, Betaflight is so good it's hard to imagine. Then again, lots of people whose opinion I respect are switching to Betaflight.

[@yannickw6375]

I agree with you +Revs, bf3 and KISS 24A are a really great combo. Boris B. also said in an interview (+Joshua Bardwell was also part of that video) that he leads back a lot of the great KISS Performance to the KISS ESC. He justified, that they still have some noticable advantage in terms of breaking compared to blheli s. To me it makes these esc's a really nice companion paired with a bf 3.0 fc leading to a remarkable flight performance.

[@abimaputra]

Do you have a simple explanation to deal with kiss v2 pid and so on setting?

[@bigrussfpvhell0]

I still heard the low throttle shuddering in final time. if you put bf on it you wouldn't get that low throttle shudder it's at a specific throttle point. of you find that throttle point and do turns while at that throttle point it will make it more pronounced

[@JoshuaBardwell]

If you listen to my betaflight tunes, I also have shuddering motors at low throttle. IMO, it's my high D gain, but it's okay with me for the resulting flight characteristics.

[@bmoyes]

Joshua Bardwell check for RC jitter. I had this going on. It sounded like d gain problems but it wasn't!

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+Ben Moyes rcCommand is solid.

[@bmoyes]

Joshua Bardwell Interesting. To my ears you definitely still had an issue there, those little chirps shouldn't be there at those lowish p and d gains.

[@mikesaskwolf8954]

I had this motor noise as well

[@mikesaskwolf8954]

Love the Alien

[@chrisrnz]

Did you have a LIPO attached when you tried to save the default PIDs? On KISS FC, settings won't save if a battery is attached ...

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+chrisrnz Yeah, I know that.

[@FPVPortugalTV]

That vibrations are now fixed with the new notch filter in KISS, try that now.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

So KISS has a notch filter now?

[@FPVPortugalTV]

Joshua Bardwell Yup, use last GUI 1.14 and this FW: kiss.flyduino.net/download/kiss-fc-v1-1rc6/ GUI here: github.com/fedorcomander/kissfc-chrome-gui

[@JimBoomer]

Why aren't you running Oneshot 42?

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+Jim Boomer the copter was shipped using oneshot and I didn't change it.

[@JimBoomer]

Ah, ok. Probably not a huge difference anyways but 42 is a bit faster and the KISS 24as do support it. Might be worth checking out. I am new to KISS and find it really similar to my BF rigs.

[@mazerin]

I know its an older video, but i moved from betaflight to KISS, now all my quads are kiss setups. because of this, i had to really focus on tuning, I watched this video and noticed that you left the LP filter on high. from experience tuning with it, you really need to work through the noise and the filtering, as you raised P the LP filter has an impact which is part of the reason why you are getting oscillation. I have started tuning with the filter off, and it has made a world of a difference. ...FYI with KISS FC ... High is your least amount, then work down the list.

[@josephwilliamcosta]

Joshua, you mention the "PID Database" in this video. Where is that located? Can you post a link? Thank you.

[@sunnysky9292]

the PID database is in the Kiss GUI as far as I know.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+sunbeam disconnected I searched for KISS PID database and found it on Flyduino.

[@PinchTune]

Don't use the presets you can download from the KISS GUI. For example, FGA or Steele's. They are based on older FW so they won't work well with newer firmwares. Something the KISS guys need to improve.

[@bra1Nphuk]

Did you try flying with LPF set to Off? It really makes a difference and on an Alien you should easily get away with it! I never had problems with LPF OFF even with pretty beaten DAL props!

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Nope.

[@vadim282]

What happened to HD cam, Joshua? I hope you just forgot to push record button. And you didn't mention the FW version, which is important.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

I was trying a new HD cam that was shipped to me for testing. It could record in 4k. Unfortunately, it was a POS that turned itself off mid flight. So I lost almost all the HD video. :-(

[@ZeroFPV]

4k at 60FPS?

[@PerthBoyz]

Vadim Nemtsev why find fault with anything he's doing ?? We don't see you making videos

[@vadim282]

PSYCHO UNCLE'S GHOST Forgot to ask for your permission how should I react..My videos have more views than yours, big time youtuber.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Guys, let's keep it civil please.

[@FarmerFpv]

don't take this the wrong way but it seems smoother than all the other quadcopters you fly already. I don't know why it seems that way it just does LOL

[@JoshuaBardwell]

I'm going to post a Betaflight video a month from now and tell you it's KISS, and see if this is just placebo effect.

[@jack00scarecrow]

Joshua thats a great idea ! i will do my best to forget your comment to help the validity of the experiment :)

[@FarmerFpv]

Joshua Bardwell I'm sure you're going to be right it will be the placebo effect LOL

[@FarmerFpv]

Joshua Bardwell I actually flight betaflight I have never flown kiss yet I would like to try it I have it sitting right here what do you think is it worth to swap out?

[@FarmerFpv]

jack00scarecrow I'm going to do the same thing LOL

[@FPVCustomsDE]

Why no Oneshot42? And when you want to bring up your rates more direct, use Rate - not RC Rate. RC Rate does add more expo...

[@JoshuaBardwell]

I know how RC rate and rate work thanks :-) I didn't use oneshot42 because this was a loaner copter and I wanted to fly it exactly as shipped instead of screwing around with configuration. But I did want to do PID and rate tuning.

[@Depronkleber]

From my understanding it's the other way around. RC Rate doesn't add expo - try here: ultraesc.de/KISSFC/rates.html

[@jamesfraser7483]

Have you saved pids to the kiss database?

[@JoshuaBardwell]

No. I don't think these were particularly good, and they're not on the latest firmware either.

[@Freakofspeed]

HaHa...Thought Chad sent you the quad when I saw the QC sticker on the bottom when you first reveled it . Dean your Paetron supporter who sent it in?

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Yes. Dean Larson sent it to me.

[@jvkee8735]

Hey mate im having problem atm with bobble up and down when throttle what do i need to adjust as im still new the the whole tuneing side of things

[@JoshuaBardwell]

My guess is you mean that when you raise and lower the throttle quickly, the quad pitches forward and back. If that's what you mean, the answer is to use Anti Gravity Gain. Enable the Anti Gravity feature in the Configuration tab. Then in the PID Tuning tab, raise Anti Gravity Gain to between 3 and 5, and higher if need be.

[@bigodin_fpv]

joshua hello, friend has a problem with acceleration of the drone, when I take a bit of acceleration engines practically they turn it off and normal or and programming esc.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+fpv araújo I'm not sure I understand but it sounds like the ESC's are losing power, if they are going into programming mode.

[@bigodin_fpv]

joshua, I modified the PIDS because the drone is standard was the calibration of PIDS what was wrong.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+fpv araújo PIDs can't make the ESC go into programming mode.

[@bigodin_fpv]

Joshua has a video explaining his this kind of problem

[@meteors63]

Loaded Betaflight 3.01on my Vortex Pro and now on their default PIDS, when on punchouts, it now Yaws to the left. Never did that before on original FW. Any advise what needs adjusting on PIDs to help correct that? Could not find any situation in your videos that had that. What would cause this? Thanks for any advice.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Step 1: install 3.1.1. If it still happens, raise yaw P to like 100. then if it still happens, raise yaw I.

[@meteors63]

OK, Joshua. So I should only try this on 3.1.1, not 3.01. OK, I'll try that. Thanks much!

[@KoekeBeest1985]

Sucks ha when you have a little crash with the xiaomi yi it just erases all footage. :/

[@TeamBlindMouse]

pardon me if you covered this I may have missed it......but this "feeling like you are driving on a rough road" where you can see little bumps in fast forward flight......what is that a symptom of ?

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+Blind Mouse FPV excess vibration. Start with soft mounting the FC.

[@TeamBlindMouse]

can bent nicked props provide this vibration ?

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+Blind Mouse FPV yes absolutely

[@alwishy2696]

What size pack are you using Josh ?

[@alwishy2696]

And did you wire up all the telemetry on the esc's

[@Airmonus]

Telemetry is wired.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

1300 mAh 4S. I didn't build the copter, but I wasn't monitoring telemetry. This was a loaner copter from someone else.

[@riktich]

Weirdly enough when i load finalglide's or Steele's pids my alien wobbles like crazy. I have the exact same setup than finalglide's. I figured my pitch P gain was too high, when i go past 3.7 it starts wobbeling again. Any idea why two exact same compter would behave so different with same PIDs?

[@MrCsami]

If you are use the newest KISS firmware you have to lower the P gains, FGA's PID settings in the KISS GUI belongs to an older firmware version.

[@alwishy2696]

I thought FGA was testing/running all the latest firmwares ?

[@FarmerFpv]

Vincent Lagarde the reason why your quadcopter is not flying like his because manufacturers in the equipment you're flying the tolerances are not exactly the same on everything so I can guarantee you that his quadcopter is not exactly the same as yours and will never be the same on the same tune you are going to have to figure it out little by little on your own I learned this the hard way I was doing just like you were about a week ago. the plain truth in the simplest answer I can give you.

[@riktich]

I managed to tune it pretty good (for me at least), i was just wondering why there is such a big difference between 2 very similar quad.

[@FarmerFpv]

Vincent Lagarde because of manufacturing tolorances in motors can cause a major difference in PID's, its not only PIDs he has tweaked more things then you think and that he is willing to admit.

[@neclovek]

You are either using the crappy DVR again or you really got a problem with your FPV setup.

[@alwishy2696]

I was just about to say that LOL,After all that testing as well josh you still have bad video at like 30ft LOL

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Dominator HD2 with LaForge. I don't know what to tell y'all.

[@lucasg2504]

Joshua Bardwell your dvr is perfectly fine.

[@neclovek]

Joshua Bardwell You can see yourself that the DVR footage looks really bad...your place is probably just cursed so even if you have the best setup, your DRV videos are always going to look like crap :P

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+neclovekSK there is a lot of breakup but I have no idea why.

[@jwhit8760]

What firmware? R29.2 works great

[@JoshuaBardwell]

+jwhit87 unknown. Maybe you can see from the video.

[@jwhit8760]

yea it look like 1.02, I know updated to r29 fix that D noise for me and its the smoothest quad I have now

[@AbdulAleemShekhani]

"Clunk" hahahahahahahahahaha

[@solopilotfpv3873]

OMG, this is the end, Joshua is switching KISS, no more betaflight tuning videos. LOL, jk.

[@NickCent]

you forgot to save

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Actually I think the problem was, you have to reboot the FC for filter changes to take effect.