Compass confusion?

[Mike_in_Letcombe]

Flown mine 3 times since receiving , haven't calibrated anything yet. FW update & charge, that's it .

This is askiing for trouble. Calibrate in your home location, away from any interference, then leave alone unless prompted OR a firmware upgrade.


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[f3honda4me]

This is askiing for trouble. Calibrate in your home location, away from any interference, then leave alone unless prompted OR a firmware upgrade.


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Not asking for trouble at all, if it's flying fine then there is no need.

 

[Andart]

I totally agree . Considering camera is callobrated in China and I'm in uk
and it flies brilliant . I recommend following dji instructions which say do not calibrate unless asked too.
I think compass calibration is the cause of most trouble . Just because it passes dosnt mean it's right you can be calibrating incorrect information and this will lead to confusion between GPS imu and compass .
Compass calibration is the easiest to do but the hardest to get correct. Any phone car metal objects can lead to it being incorrect , considering most people use phone in RC I'm sure they don't leave there RC 20 ft away .
The old phantom needed callobrated a lot this technology says don't.

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[Frits]

My experience:
I live near Montreal, Canada and have flown the Mavic in a radius of approx. 30 km or so from home. I also brought it with me to the Maine Atlantic coast, which is some 400 km away (as the bird flies).
To date I have made about 75 rock-solid flights and I have not once calibrated the Mavic.
I will calibrated if asked, but otherwise I will leave good-enough alone.

 

[J-Dub]

Does the Compass Calibration effect the Heading orientation of the aircraft? For instance, a couple times the onscreen-map icon of the craft doesn't show the actual orientation/heading of it on the ground. No issues in flight, just wondering if a re-cal might fix that.

 

[BudWalker]

Does the Compass Calibration effect the Heading orientation of the aircraft? For instance, a couple times the onscreen-map icon of the craft doesn't show the actual orientation/heading of it on the ground. No issues in flight, just wondering if a re-cal might fix that.

Probably not. The heading is initialized from the magnetometers which can be inaccurate if the AC has been subjected to a geomagnetic distortion. This often happens before flight if the AC is turned on and then handled, temporarily placed on a car hood, etc. The important value is what does that heading indicate immediately before launch. If it doesn't look right the flight should be aborted.

What kind of deviation are we talking about anyway?

 

[J-Dub]

Only had a few flights so far, so not really accurate analysis because I'm concentrating on flying, but onscreen while on the ground the craft would be pointing 90-degrees from actual orientation. Next flight I'll pay more attention to it and do a recal of the compass to see if it changes. In flight, the bird onscreen-icon seems to be pointing in the correct direction.

 

[dacarter]

I got my Mavic yesterday and flew it next to the house a few times. I got the Compass error many times. I finally figured out that if I set it on the dirt instead of the concrete parking pad I didn't get the error. I'm thinking the steel re-barb in the concrete might be affecting the compass. I got really tired of calibrating it since it's not easy to handle and spin the drone as described without dropping it.