One of the vital settings in FPV drone tuning is charges—they decide how your drone responds to stay inputs. In case your charges are too excessive, your quad will really feel twitchy and arduous to manage. In the event that they’re too low, it might really feel sluggish and unresponsive. On this tutorial, I’ll break down what Betaflight charges are, how they work, why Precise Charges are the most suitable choice, and easy methods to decide the excellent charges to your flying model.
Charges Want Tuning
Identical to PID and filters, charges should be wonderful tuned to optimize your drone’s efficiency. You’ll be amazed by the numerous enhancements you may obtain in your flying expertise by tuning charges to match your distinctive flying model and necessities.
Betaflight gives a complete of 5 fee methods:
- Precise Charges
- Betaflight Charges
- Raceflight Charges
- KISS Charges
- Fast Charges
Nevertheless, probably the most extensively used are Precise and Betaflight Charges.
On this tutorial, we are going to delve into the important thing options of Precise Charges and Betaflight Charges, how they work, and the way I discover my most well-liked charges. In case you are undecided which fee system to make use of, my advice for each freshmen and skilled pilots can be to start out with the default – Precise Charges. It’s efficient and intuitive to make use of.
Understanding Precise Charges
“Precise Charges” are the default charges in Betaflight, offering an easy strategy to setting most rotational velocity (e.g., getting into 1000 corresponds to 1000deg/sec) and heart sensitivity values. No extra guessing, as this technique is way extra intuitive and fewer complicated for pilots in comparison with the older Betaflight charges.
In case you are new to the passion, I’d advocate utilizing Precise charges. For those who come from one other kind of charges, there are various on-line device that assist you to convert fee values between these totally different methods.
There are 3 values in Precise Charges: Heart Sensitivity, Max Charge, Expo.
Heart Sensitivity
Heart Sensitivity pertains to the responsiveness across the heart stick place. A decrease worth gives finer, smoother management, whereas the next worth leads to a extra reactive drone to stay motion.
Max Charge
Max Charge defines the drone’s spin pace at full stick deflection. The worth entered represents the precise most rotational velocity. For instance, getting into 700 means your drone will try to rotate at 700 levels/sec at full stick.
Nevertheless, needless to say the utmost angular velocity may be restricted by your motors. When motors attain their bodily limitations and can’t spin any quicker, the utmost angular velocity is capped, whatever the greater worth set in Betaflight.
Expo
Expo flattens the curve between heart stick and full stick. To realize a extra linear fee, hold Expo low. For a broader heart stick area with finer management, improve Expo. Take into account that growing Expo additionally reduces heart sensitivity. Whereas Expo may be as excessive as 1.0, extreme Expo would possibly trigger decreased heart stick sensitivity and make the drone’s response extra unpredictable in direction of full stick (extra jumpy).
Tuning Precise Charges
Begin by setting the Heart Sensitivity. Cruise round and navigate via gaps to check the specified management precision across the heart stick. For small changes and exact aiming via gates and gaps, the drone have to be exactly managed. If the Heart Sensitivity is just too excessive, the drone will overreact and turn out to be jittery. Evaluation your flight footage will assist you to decide extra objectively.
Subsequent, set up your Max Charge by performing flips and rolls – be sure you are proud of how snappy your drone is. This step needs to be comparatively easy.
Lastly, observe freestyle strikes involving numerous stick positions between heart and full stick. To flatten the speed curve, add some Expo, however bear in mind that this may cut back predictability in direction of full stick. For those who improve Expo an excessive amount of, it’s possible you’ll want to lift Heart Sensitivity barely to compensate. Expo is primarily a matter of private choice.
Repeat this course of for roll, pitch and yaw, or it’s possible you’ll copy the identical values for all 3 axes.
My Charges
Right here’s a normal guideline for various flying kinds and functions based mostly on my private expertise:
- Cinematic / Racing: 500-800 Max Charge
- Freestyle: 600-1000 Max Charge
- Line of Sight: 1000+ Max Charge
Then set heart sensitivity in accordance with your flying model. Reducing heart sensitivity allows you to make tiny corrections with out jerky motion—that is particularly helpful for cinematic flying and {smooth} freestyle strains.
- Cinematic: 50-150 Heart Sensitivity
- Freestyle: 100-200 Heart Sensitivity
- Racing / Line of Sight: 150-300 Heart Sensitivity
Expo controls how {smooth} or aggressive your stick response is in the course of stick journey. In case your quad feels too linear and robotic, including a little bit of expo could make actions really feel extra pure. For those who fly freestyle, a small expo curve makes methods like juicy flicks and snap rolls really feel smoother. However an excessive amount of expo could make actions far much less predictable.
- Cinematic: Excessive expo (0.4 – 0.7) for ultra-smooth photographs.
- Freestyle: Medium expo (0.3 – 0.6) for steadiness between smoothness and snap.
- Racing: Low expo (0 – 0.3) for fast, linear and predictable response.
My Freestyle Charges
Pitch/Roll
- Heart Sensitivity: 190
- Max Charge: 1000
- Expo: 0.70
Yaw
- Heart Sensitivity: 200
- Max Charge: 650
- Expo: 0.55
Observe that my charges differ relying on how I maintain the sticks. When “pinching”, my max charges are comparable, however heart sensitivity tends to be greater as a result of I can transfer the sticks extra precisely when I’m pinching in comparison with thumbing. Listed below are my thumbing charges for comparability:
Pitch/Roll (Thumbing)
- Heart Sensitivity: 140
- Max Charge: 1000
- Expo: 0.50
Yaw (Thumbing)
- Heart Sensitivity: 180
- Max Charge: 650
- Expo: 0.40
My Tiny Whoop Charges
Pitch/Roll
- Heart Sensitivity: 230
- Max Charge: 1000
- Expo: 0.62
Yaw
- Heart Sensitivity: 250
- Max Charge: 1300
- Expo: 0.68
Discover my yaw fee is slightly greater as a result of I take advantage of a number of yaw when flying tiny whoops indoor because of the quantity of speedy sharp turns.
Delving into Betaflight Charges
Betaflight Charges is a legacy system, and whereas I don’t advocate it I assumed it might be good to have slightly introduction for newcomers. Why I don’t advocate it? Nicely, it’s more durable to make use of than Precise Charges as a result of the three phrases are interdependent, making it much less intuitive to make use of.
RC Charge
RC Charge impacts the speed curve’s slope linearly all through the complete stick vary and determines how rapidly the quadcopter rotates at full deflection. For those who’re conversant in computer systems, you may consider it as mouse sensitivity.
A better fee leads to a extra responsive however twitchier quad. Small stick actions will produce vital quad actions. Growing the RC Charge additionally boosts the quad’s spin pace, enabling quicker flips and rolls.
Nevertheless, needless to say the utmost angular velocity may be restricted by your motors. When motors attain their bodily limitations and can’t spin any quicker, the utmost angular velocity is capped, whatever the greater worth set in Betaflight.
RC Expo
RC Expo, often known as Exponential or just Expo, reduces sensitivity close to the stick’s heart the place wonderful controls are wanted (for Roll, Pitch, and Yaw) however doesn’t change the utmost angular velocity at full stick.
Expo is a share worth, starting from 0% (0) to 100% (1). At 0%, the rise in rotational pace between minimal and most stick enter is linear, forming a “V” form with no stick enter within the heart. At 50% stick enter, your quad will rotate across the given axis at precisely half the utmost rotational velocity.
Growing Expo reduces sensitivity round mid-stick, requiring additional stick motion to realize the identical rotational velocity. Visualize Expo as remodeling the “V” form right into a “U”, with the next expo share flattening the “U” across the center.
Tremendous Charge
Tremendous Charge (or just Charge) will increase each max angular velocity and sensitivity across the heart stick.
By elevating the Tremendous Charge, you may preserve reasonable stick sensitivity round mid-stick for traditional flying maneuvers whereas nonetheless reaching snappy rolls and flips on the stick endpoints.
Tremendous Charge primarily combines the results of RC Charge and Expo, permitting for extra flexibility in reaching the specified stick really feel.
So why use Tremendous Charge? We will simply use RC Charge and Expo proper? Sure, kind of, however having Tremendous Charge provides us extra flexibility in reaching the stick really feel we wish.
Tuning Betaflight Charges
Tuning charges finally relies on private choice and “really feel.”
Start with the default Betaflight values: RC Charge 1.0, Tremendous Charge 0.7, Expo 0 for all three axes.
When tuning my charges, I at all times modify RC Charge first. Carry out flips and rolls, and if the quadcopter spins too slowly, improve RC Charge till happy. Observe down the max angular velocity (deg/sec) within the Betaflight Configurator. For my freestyle rig, I often purpose for round 700-800 levels per second.
Subsequent, merely cruise round (with out flips or rolls) and make sure the quadcopter responds swiftly and predictably to your stick inputs throughout turns. If it’s too delicate for exact motion, improve Expo. If it’s too sluggish to react (not delicate sufficient), lower Tremendous Charge whereas growing RC Charge to compensate and lift the max angular pace.
Expo isn’t at all times crucial since Tremendous Charge can present the identical impact. Nevertheless, should you nonetheless discover small actions round mid-stick too delicate, improve Expo till you strike the proper steadiness between precision and responsiveness.
Professional Tip: Making use of Expo on the radio (TX) reduces your stick decision, so at all times set Expo within the flight controller software program every time attainable!
You might must iterate via the method a number of occasions till the charges really feel excellent. Keep in mind that pitch, roll, and yaw charges don’t should be an identical—freestyle pilots typically desire greater roll and yaw charges however decrease pitch fee, it’s all private choice.
Completely different flight controller software program has totally different ranges and scaling in PID, charges and expo, so the identical numbers don’t essentially give the identical leads to a distinct firmware. It is best to be capable of discover on-line converters if you wish to migrate to a distinct FC firmware.
To provide you some examples, listed below are the Charges and Expos I used previously:
Freestyle
- RC Charge – 1.2
- Tremendous Charge – 0.77
- RC Expo – 0.20
Clean Cruiser:
- RC Charge = 0.80
- RC Expo = 0.00
- Tremendous Charge = 0.65
Expo is ready to zero right here on function, that is to keep away from overreacting in shut conditions and truly provides you total smoother end result.
Aggressive Acro Quad:
- RC Charge, Pitch/Roll = 1.80, Yaw = 2.00
- Tremendous Charge, All = 0.64
- RC Expo, Pitch/Roll = 0.20, Yaw = 0.15
Tiny Whoop Charges
- Roll+Pitch: RC Charge 1.2, Tremendous Charge 0.75, Expo 0
- YAW: RC Charge 1.3, Tremendous Charge 0.80 Expo 0
- If utilizing acro mode, allow crash_recovery, there are some settings (get crash_ in CLI) you would possibly need to tune first to keep away from false self-centering.
As your flying talent improves, and also you turn out to be extra comfy performing aggressive manoeuvres, you would attempt to crank up your charges. And additionally, you will most likely need to use a bit extra expo to take care of correct wonderful management.
There is no such thing as a proper or improper Expo and Charge values, so long as it fits you. For instance, I’ve shaky fingers, so my expo is likely to be a bit greater than others. :p
Don’t Change Your Charges!
Some pilots modify their charges for various drones, however this may be counterproductive.
Sustaining constant charges throughout all of your quads is essential for creating muscle reminiscence. Having constant charges means that you can instinctively management the drone’s actions. For those who’re always tweaking your charges, your instincts won’t ever absolutely develop. As a substitute, decide one set of charges and follow them—this may assist you to construct constant, instinctive stick management, it doesn’t matter what you’re flying.
That mentioned, this rule primarily applies to quads of comparable dimension and energy. For those who’re flying drastically totally different plane—resembling a 5″ freestyle quad and a tiny whoop—it is smart to regulate charges accordingly. These drones have very totally different flight traits and are flown in solely totally different environments, so utilizing totally different charges for every is each sensible and crucial.
Throttle Mid and Throttle Expo
Throttle Expo modifies the form of the throttle curve, flattening it across the “Throttle Mid” level. This permits for a gentler throttle response and most stick decision round this throttle degree.
Throttle Mid adjusts the place within the throttle curve the place Throttle Expo is utilized. By default, it’s set to 50% throttle (0.50), however should you plan to make use of Throttle Expo, Throttle Mid needs to be set to the throttle of cruising pace. That is the place you will want probably the most throttle decision, and Throttle Expo would possibly make altitude management simpler for you.
Throttle Mid is not going to have any impact should you set Throttle Expo to 0, as your throttle curve will stay a straight line whatever the Throttle Mid setting.
Alternatively, you may arrange a throttle curve in your transmitter for much more exact throttle management.
Remaining Ideas: The Magic of Precise Charges
Switching to Precise Charges in Betaflight was a game-changer for me. It gave me full management over how my quad responds with out annoying unintended effects from outdated fee methods. For those who’re nonetheless on previous Betaflight charges, do your self a favor—swap to Precise Charges and by no means look again. You’ll get smoother, extra predictable, and easier-to-tune management.
Edit Historical past
- 2015 – Article created
- 2018 – Article up to date
- 2021 – Added data about new function in Betaflight: Precise Charge
- 2022 – Utilizing Precise Charge as the usual, up to date screenshots, up to date Charge Tuning directions,
- 2023 – Simplified URL, optimized title
- Feb 2025 – Up to date tutorial
