Purpose:
These are some of the few settings that shouldn't be adjusted unless there's an issue of having jitters at neutral or for advance users. This Mini Menu has 3 parameters that can be adjusted: Steering Deadzone, Throttle DeadZone, and the amount of ADC samples used for sensing the position of the trigger or steering wheel.
In the perfect, theoretical world, the voltages inside the radio are perfectly constant and steady and microcomputer works exactly as expected. This would allow the radio to take one measurement reading of the trigger or steering wheel position and that measurement wouldn't vary if nothing moved However, this is the real world and the radio only has to meet chinese quality standards. So the voltages fluxuate quite abit and the microcomputer may have a bad reading occasionally.
This causes the position readings to vary ever so slightly which usually isn't noticeable. However, if it is noticeable (Servos/Motors jitter when nothing is moving), then the dead zone can be increased.
A dead zone is the amount of space around the neutral/center value which a varying position reading won't cause any change in signal output. The amount of change in this case is the amount of Analog to Digital Converter steps.
Now, an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) is a device that takes a voltage (which changes proportional to the position of the steering wheel or trigger) and converts it into a digital signal that can be interpreted by the microcomputer. The Flysky Radio's have an 10-bit ADC which means it can convert a 0-5V voltage level into 1024 different values. Value 512 is equivalent to 2.5 Volts. So in the radio, Full counterclockwise position is around value 0 and full clockwise position is around value 1024. The middle, spring return point should be around 512. Every radio is different, that is why the calibration procedure is so important. I tells the radio which values correspond to what location.
Ok, definitions are out of the way. Let's walk through how this deadzone concept works. Let's say the center calibrated value is 520. Now let's say there is some jitter in the readings, it's reading +/- 5 steps around neutral. The default dead zone is 2 steps or +/- 1 step around neutral. This is allowing +/- 4 steps to get through to the output signal causing the servo to jitter back and forth about 0.4% (4/1024). To fix this, just bump the dead zone up to 10 steps.
Also, another way to help with the jitter is todo an average sampling. This is default in the firmware. What average sampling does is take 4 ADC readings, averages them, then uses that as the position reading. This help reduces jitter and outlier readings (readings way off what they should be). However, a ADC reading is really slow in the microcomputer world, which could increase lag in a super high speed / low lag system. However, the default flysky hardware is pretty slow so the extra clock cycles is negligible.
How to access this sub menu:
The Dead Zone and ADC mini menu is accessible from the the Global Menu. It should be the seventh mini menu upon entering the Global Menu. To find it scroll till there is an A shown on the seven segment display.
- Starting from the Home Screen
- Press enter-LONG
- Scroll till A is shown on the seven segment display
- Press enter-SHORT
How to use this menu:
There is three parameters that can be changed in this mini menu, the Steering Dead Zone, Throttle Dead Zone, and ADC Averaging. After entering the mini menu, the scroll wheel can change the amount of ADC steps and enter-SHORT clicks Lets you change between parameters. The dead zone has a range of 0 to 50 ADC steps and the ADC Averaging has the option to use only one reading or to average 4 readings.
- Use the scroll wheel to adjust the amount of steps
- Press enter-SHORT to cycle between parameters
- The cycle is Steering Dead Zone, Throttle Deadzone, ADC Averaging, Global Menu
- Press enter-LONG, END, or BACK to exit the menu back to the home screen
Screen Indicators:
While the Dead Zone and ADC mini menu is open, the following should occur
- The Model and Name icon at the top of the screen will be flashing back and forth
- There will be an A in the seven segment display
- The 3 Character Dot display will look like the following for the different stages of the cycle
Steering Deadzone: Sxx (S00 to S50)Throttle Deadzone: Txx (T00 to T50)ADC Averaging: A_4 or A_1 (ON or OFF)