User Manual

USER GUIDE
86
8 Advanced MicroVector Setup and Calibration
This section covers some of the many MicroVector settings and features that will appeal to more advanced
pilots.
8.1 Getting the Most out of your High Performance Mini Quad
This section provides guidelines on getting the most out of your high performance Mini Quad, and
describes some advanced tuning settings and concepts.
Make sure you fully understand what you are doing, and understand the capabilities of your ESCs, before
making changes to advanced settings!
8.1.1 Starting with Good Hardware
Great performance starts with having solid, modern hardware. Here are a few recommendations:
 Get a stiff, high quality airframe. Preferably high thickness carbon fiber or fiberglass. The arms should
be stiff enough that applying moderate force on them does not create any noticeable deflection.
 Make sure you are using well balanced propellers and high quality, undamaged motors.
 Use modern ESCs. At a minimum, your ESCs must support the “Oneshot125” ESC communications
protocol. Multishot capability with 4 or 8kHz support is recommended.
 Also, make sure your ESCs are running the most recent stable firmware available for them. The
MicroVector provides the ability to program “BLHeli
TM
” bootloaded ESCs using current versions of the
3
rd
party software, “BLHeliSuite”. For more info, see section 6.12.7 – ‘Configuring BLHeliTM ESCs using
BLHeliSuite’.
8.1.2 Initial Tuning
Make sure you’ve selected the “High Perf Mini Quad” airframe type, as described in section
6.6.1 – ‘Special Notes on the “High Perf Mini Quad” Airframe Type’. This step activates
numerous performance optimizations and control algorithms tuned for high performance
mini quadcopters, as well as setting some defaults to reduce your setup workload.
Complete the configuration and basic tuning steps described earlier in the manual, to the
point that you are able to get your quadcopter in a stable hover. Normally just adjusting the basic gains
should allow you to achieve a reasonable hover.
At this stage, it is probably best to avoid changing too many settings, but here are some important ones to
verify:
 Max ESC/Motor Output: Set this to or below the max throttle that your ESCs are configured to
accept. This will ensure that the Vector will not request a throttle output that is beyond the ESC’s
physical capability to provide.
 Oneshot/Multishot Mode: By default, this is set to Oneshot125. If you decide to set your ESC update
rate above 2.6KHz (see below), you’ll need to change this to Multishot. Note that your ESCs must be
Multishot capable, in this case!
 Set ESC Update Rate: By default, this is set to 1KHz. Setting it to a higher value can increase
performance, but make sure to research whether your ESCs are capable of handling higher update rates
before making changes!
 Set Maximum Pitch / Roll during Normal Flight to 45 degrees: For those that enjoy the security of
2D Mode, increasing this limit will give you far more authority while maneuvering. This setting does
not affect 3D Mode.