Cleanflight is an open source flight controller software used on 32-bit flight controllers for multirotor aircraft and fixed-wing aircraft. It provides tuning and configuration options through tabs like setup, ports, configuration, PID tuning, receiver, modes, adjustments and more. Basic setup involves flashing a cleanflight-enabled flight controller board like the Naze32 via USB, then configuring options in the tabs like PID settings, receiver type, and motor directions. The command line interface (CLI) allows changing settings like looptime and filters to optimize performance.

1. BASIC INTRODUCTION TO CLEANFLIGHT
V1.9.0
By: Zach Scally (zscally@gmail.com)
Presented: to FPV Race League.

2. What is Cleanflight?
• Cleanflight is a open source flight controller software used
by 32bit processors.
• Cleanflight can be used on multirotor aircraft and fixed-
wing aircraft, it supports a variety for shapes and motor
counts, not limited to quadcopters, hexacopters,
octocopters, tricopters and planes.

3. Supported 32bit Flight Controllers
• Naze32 (most popular)
• AlienWii32
• CC3D
• CJMCU
• ChebuzzF3 F3 board (new upcoming technology)
• Olimexino
• Paris Air Hero
• SPRacingF3 F3 board (new upcoming technology)
• Sparky F3 board (new upcoming technology)
• Flip32
• RMRC DODO F3 board (new upcoming technology)

4. The Basics (whatwe’regoingtoneed)
• Some sort of cleanflight enabled board.
• Some boards require you to solder header pins on.
• A computer with cleanflight installed. (http://tinyurl.com/mdek2lq )
• Sometimes a SMT32 driver is required (out of scope).
• A USB Cable (to plug up the flight controller)
• RC receiver and Transmitter
• Battery (optional)

5. Flashing
• Updates newest version of cleanflight to the flight
controller
• Improves performance and add new features
• Internet connection makes things easier but not required.

7. Start of Basic Setup
Cleanflight is broken up in tabs
• Setup (general overall view of what's going on)
• Ports (Ic2 and UART communication pipes)
• Configuration (General Configuration)
• PID Tuning (PID controllers and RC Rate)
• Receiver (Receiver Monitor and Configuration)
• Modes (Flight modes and other features)
• Adjustments (Custom mixes)
• Servos
• GPS
• Motors
• LED Strip
• Sensors
• Logging
• DataFlash
• CLI (Command line Interface)

8. Ports
• Ability to setup GPS module
• Ability to setup PPM receiver
• Ability to setup blackbox logging
• I will briefly speak about PPM receivers but I Will not go in
depth, I’ve experienced a lot of issues with certain types
of PPM receiver modules and the one’s I find to work the
best are the Lemon RX PPM satellite receivers found
here
http://tinyurl.com/n8ljzds

9. Configuration

10. PID Tuning

11. PID Tuning Continued
• Good resource for tuning your PIDS
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30Au6sEv6-o

12. Receiver

13. Modes

14. Motors

15. CLI (CommandLineInterface)

16. CLI Commands
• Set looptime = 1600 (press enter) NOTE: May very from ESC to ESC.
• Set Acc_lpf_factor = 100 (press enter)
• Set emf_avoidance = 1 (press enter)
• acc_hardware (press enter) - WARNING: ONLY DO THIS IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO
RUN AUTO LEVEL
• Save (press enter)

17. looptime
This is the main loop time (in us). Changing this affects PID
effect with some PID controllers (see PID section for
details). Default of 3500us/285Hz should work for
everyone. Setting it to zero does not limit loop time, so it
will go as fast as possible.
So basically the communication speed to your ESC’s

18. Acc_lpf_factor
This setting controls the Low Pass Filter factor for ACC.
Increasing this value reduces ACC noise (visible in GUI),
but would increase ACC lag time. Zero = no filter
Smooth's out Accelerometer noise!!

19. emf_avoidance
Default value is 0 for 72MHz processor speed. Setting this
to 1 increases the processor speed, to move the 6th
harmonic away from 432MHz.
Again another setting to smooth out communication speed
to your processor.

20. acc_hardware
WARNING:ONLYDOTHISIFYOUCHOOSENOTTORUNAUTOLEVEL
This is used to suggest which accelerometer driver should
load, or to force no accelerometer in case gyro-only flight is
needed. Default (0) will attempt to auto-detect among
enabled drivers. Otherwise, to force a particular device, set
it to 2 for ADXL345, 3 for MPU6050 integrated
accelerometer, 4 for MMA8452, 5 for BMA280, 6 for
LSM303DLHC, 7 for SPI_MPU6000, 8 for SPI_MPU6500
or 1 to disable accelerometer altogether - resulting in gyro-
only operation.
Another setting to improve performance of your 32bit
processor.

21. Setup

22. That’s a Wrap
Something's to note.
• All flight controllers are a little different but all should
function the same.
• Setting loop time is based of the speed of your ESC
• Always remember to take off your props when working in
cleanflight.
• And this picture