Flight controllers as sub levelers

after some more testing I found that to get all the motor control functioning I eventually had to set it up as a motor output. I think this is just due to the way the mixing is done, stabilised throttle output gave me strange readings when I disabled the motor output, it was like it disabled the concept of a motor its strange. I think to get it working with a single motor and not have it assign a set of pins to a second motor that is not used I will need to do a custom mix in the CLI, the sub is packed away at the moment and im working on my other boats I am going to revisit this very soon once some more parts arrive. I was more interested in getting the levelling working that I didn't really do any testing with the motor output. I think most of this is probably due to the stock plane mixing template.

you are right that just passing through the RC input for the throttle might be a better idea since we dont need to worry about any kind of throttle control by the flight controller as most people wont be using any kind of auto navigation.

im going to look into doing a custom mix that will add a dive channel, basically mix an extra input like a slider that will rotate the front and rear planes in the same direction so it can dive as well as use all 4 for levelling.

I can dig out my built FC and try updating it to 6.10 (currently its 5.10) and see if i can get it happy without a "throttle"

tsenecal wrote:

I am assuming that we are all using "wing" style FCs for the submarines...  

The main difference is the wing controllers have an extra regulator for the servos but you can use any inav compatible flight controller, you just need a bec for the servos.

hmm... i am using the wing controllers because they have actual servo pwm outputs (pins for standard servos). for 6 or more servos. the BEC i was using for the servos is from the ESC.

tsenecal wrote:hmm...  i am using the wing controllers because they have actual servo pwm outputs (pins for standard servos).  for 6 or more servos.  the BEC i was using for the servos is from the ESC.

its generally the older controllers that will still have servo pins. when you said wing fc, there are specific controllers for wings like the f405-wing from matek with the extra regulators, I thought thats what you were talking about.
https://www.speedybee.com/speedybee-f405-wing-app-fixed-wing-flight-controller/

I use a board without pins on one of my tugs, i just mount it on some breadboard and solder some jumper wires to rows of pins to make a servo breakout.

quote rather than edit lol

tsenecal wrote:hmm...  i am using the wing controllers because they have actual servo pwm outputs (pins for standard servos).  for 6 or more servos.  the BEC i was using for the servos is from the ESC.

another option if your flight controller has limited output or no servo pins is to use a PCA9685 i2c servo driver, it gives you 16 outputs from i2c, I am not sure if all 16 are currently supported it might only be the first 8 channels.

https://quadmeup.com/using-pca9685-with-inav/


done some more checking, they removed it in v5.0 and recommend sbus out with a sbus pwm decoder. im not a fan of that as it uses up a uart port.