Deconstructing Model.ini Files - A Tutorial

I've put together this tutorial to help new users better understand the way I use the Deviation model.ini files. Using several example models, I have listed a selection of model.ini files line by line with comments and explanation alongside. I've describe each section and line of the files, and deconstructed what I think is the intent of each section. I hope this helps ease some of the challenges faced by new (or even experienced) Deviation Users, and helps smooth and reduce the learning curve.





This is not a syntax guide or user manual. It is a walk through some typical model.ini files. The material was gathered from many of the posts, notes, and threads in this forum, and I've included a few of the most common (and sometimes confusing) functional tricks. I have freely borrowed from the creative minds behind these tools, and I am indebted to them their efforts. This forum is a wealth of information, and perhaps this will help more people access and assimilate the material.

Please let me know if I've erred, overstated or missed anything in my descriptions. I welcome comments, additions, extensions or edits!

Jeff

Updated! Thanks for the comments and suggestions!

Yeah, cool! Thanks.

Well done Jeff for taking the initiative

After a very quick look through and checking some of my files, possibly some info to add is with regard to mixer mux types; it looks like unless the muxtype is explicitly stated (eg. add, multiply) then it will be a "replace" by default, and this text will not be written in the file. So if you don't see "muxtype=whatever" specified, then you can take it as being a replacement mix.

As a 6S user I'm one of those guys that use the GUI to program rather than directly edit the ini, but it's very useful to know how to read the ini files, especially if borrowing ideas from other people's files.

Nice work. I'm to tired to go through all of it now, but I had some suggestions for what I did get through.

• The standard GUI is only available for the heli model type. Not sure what happens if you enable it for the others via an editor, but I wouldn't recommend it. It should really only be used for helis that need collective mixing in the Tx.
• The multi model type is only available in the nightly builds. We've had a number of people wondering where it was in 4.0.1, so it would be nice if you could let them know here.
• The reverse channel setting doesn't change the way inputs are handled, but instead reverses the output value sent by the Tx. Not likely to make a difference, but I'm not sure it's impossible.
• The src parameter is ignored if the curve type is fixed.

Very nice. Most appreciated.

I think it would be very helpful to encourage folks to include comments in their posted model files. Much can be learned there too. They don't have to take up lots of space to be useful.

Thanks very much!

FDR wrote: ... I wouldn't encourage anybody to edit the model files directly, especially the newbees, because the fw is not necessarily prepared for wrong syntax or values, but it is useful if somebody can read and understand the model files.

Some of us much prefer editing model files to wrestling with the user interface. Makes things like borrowing a whole complex mix tree from another model possible.

Nice I have a copy of Writing deviation TX model that I was going to take to Kinkos and have spiral bound. Glad I haven't done it yet as I will ad this tutorial to it.

Good job Jeff and thanks........

FDR wrote: Well, you're probably not a newbee.
...and you probably haven't got a DEVO 6, 8 or 12, where the programming is easy and fast enough.

I'm not a newbie, have a Devo 6 as well as a 10, and would rather edit things with the GUI in the emulator than edit .ini files - even using an editor that has a mode for .ini files!

There are some GUI editors for generic .ini files, but the ones I found all want your .ini files to have unique section names, and unique value names in a section, which deviation doesn't do...

OK, more suggestions:

Page 9, the comment on the SRC line is "this mixer is active when". That's the switch setting, not SRC.

The safety section talks about " idle-up" helicopters. Those are usually called "collective pitch", and the problem is that lift is controlled by both the throttle speed and rotor pitch, both of which are controlled by the throttle stick, exactly how depending on the flight mode. "Auto=min" should work for those, as it's checking the throttle output, not the stick position. So if you're in a mode where the throttle never goes to zero, you should get a warning instead of a spinning rotor. This also applies to the sticky throttle hold section: it checks the throttle output, so collective pitch helicopters needs to be in a flight modes where the throttle can go to zero as well as just having the throttle stick all the way down before the hold will release.

The step values of 191, 193, etc aren't added to the trims like they are for normal trims. Those are magic values indicating that this trim is being used as a momentary button or toggle or on/off pair.

FDR wrote: Well, you're probably not a newbee.
...and you probably haven't got a DEVO 6, 8 or 12, where the programming is easy and fast enough.

I have a couple of Devo 7e's. Likely the most popular unit running Deviation. I find programming the GUI to be tiresome, messy and error prone. Editing the model files, while far from ideal, is relatively quick and much more powerful. Borrowing code and comparing files is a big win. Ultimately, I much prefer to fly than program model files. So a less cumbersome interface would be welcome.

(The 7e cries out for a bluetooth-connected phone app for editing models. Freeing up some much needed memory.)

Thanks very much for your comments.

As usual, work is getting in the way of a quick reply, but I will incorporate the suggestions ASAP and update the post. It's great to hear your comments and I will once again take advantage of your experience!

First post updated.

The files discussed in this article were created on and for the Devo 7e, and I plan to include a note to that effect in my next update.

Thank you for this excellent help for beginners.
This kind of tutorial makes the platform accessible to all. So much so that that the Deviation software should include ready-to-use example ini files for different types of aircraft (eg 4 ch, 6 ch, 3 axis, 6 axis, fp, cp, etc); anything which has been tested and found working should be included, along with a short description of the functional characteristics implemented.

It would be great if folks would start annotating model files when posting. A preamble on each file explaining channel and switch usage would be especially helpful.

Comments are supported.

A library of model file excerpts might be helpful too.

vmsda wrote: Thank you for this excellent help for beginners.
This kind of tutorial makes the platform accessible to all. So much so that that the Deviation software should include ready-to-use example ini files for different types of aircraft (eg 4 ch, 6 ch, 3 axis, 6 axis, fp, cp, etc); anything which has been tested and found working should be included, along with a short description of the functional characteristics implemented.

These are called "templates" and they are already in the distribution. It includes 4 and 6 channel models as well as a dual rates tem!plate and a generic helicopter. If you want to add more, please create a pull request for them.

The library is also a great idea, and had been discussed before. But somebody needs to do it. I could, but I'd rather work on things like the extra switches and vice alerts code, and suspect many users would would prefer I work on those as well. So someone else needs to step up and do it.

And thanks again to Deal57 for stepping up and doing this documentation.