How many of you calibrated your mavic 2?

[sdharris]

No need to calibrate unless the app requests it. Last time I calibrated a DJI drone was the Phantom 3, since then had the Mavic Pro, Spark and now the Mavic 2 Pro. Simply no need to calibrate the hell out of it.

 

[Colbymh]

Well that cleared it all up.

 

[Gray52]

Mine requested a compass calibration, all flys fine [emoji846]

 

[sar104]

Well that cleared it all up.

DJI has been the source of endless confusion on this subject. It often appears that the authors of the instruction manuals just don't talk to the engineers. So all this conflicting advice is supported, to some degree, by instructions and statements from DJI.

Most of the time, even if unnecessary, calibrating the compass or IMU is not going to do any harm as long as you check afterwards that the sensor values show as green and good in the Go app. Also, especially with respect to the yaw value, which is set from the compass at startup, make sure that, before takeoff, the aircraft orientation arrow on the display agrees with the direction that the aircraft is actually facing. If those are all good then the aircraft is very unlikely to have problems in flight.

The other important thing to note is that if there is magnetic interference at the takeoff location, calibrating cannot fix that and will likely make things worse. The only solution is to find a better location.

 

[Gringorio]

My conclusion is that the app is displaying the wrong image for step 3 & 4 and I am hoping DJI will release an update to the android version within a few days that addresses this. In the mean time - I would advise holding off on calibrating the IMU. If you happen to get stuck, follow the video instructions like I did and you should be in the clear. Ill put this turkey up in the air this evening and let you guys know if it flies away or decides to frontflip into the ground. Cross your fingers.

I just had the same experience so I finally ignored the photos in the app and followed a youtube tutorial. Frustrating, but finally calibrated. Time to fly!

 

[mau5_h3ad]

Yep. Took mine on a weekend trip to cali and it flies like a dream.

 

[gnirtS]

My compass arrived 50% across the bar and yellow. It didnt prompt. I calibrated.

FWIW the manual this time states:-

 

[AnchorageAk]

I did the compass. A year ago some people where doing it every flight, and got into problems by doing it around metal. As stated, there was a lot of confusion about when to do it.

 

[sar104]

My compass arrived 50% across the bar and yellow. It didnt prompt. I calibrated.

FWIW the manual this time states:-
View attachment 45278

Mine wasn't quite 50%, but not far off. It also didn't prompt, but it appeared to me that the direction indicator was slightly off. I calibrated immediately, and that put the status way down in the green. The manual simply cannot be trusted on this issue - they have been giving changing and conflicting advice so often. It's nearly as bad as trying to figure whether drinking alcohol is good for you or not.

 

[gnirtS]

The manual as it is now seems sane. If you haven't used it for a while, moved it a distance or it tells you to then do it. Otherwise dont.

 

[Kingram]

It is confusing because it seems half the experts says calibrate out of the box and the other half say only do it if prompted or if the bird is drifting . Do any of you guys follow Captain Drone on YouTube ? I asked him if he calibrated his Mavic 2 before flying and he said "Not required. In the good old days of drones (beyond 3 years ago), you did have to do that out of the box. Some of the less expensive drones require a compass calibration prior to every flight.See the comments from the video.

 

[gnirtS]

The main problem is you can have large variations in magnetic fields in some parts of the world and theres no way of knowing ahead of time.
If you could ensure people would calibrate correctly then theres no harm. But it seems lots dont do it correctly so stand a chance of messing it up.

I transported my M1 11,000 miles, didn't calibrate and still worked fine but that wasn't the most sensible way to approach it.

 

[sar104]

The manual as it is now seems sane. If you haven't used it for a while, moved it a distance or it tells you to then do it. Otherwise dont.

But distance and time don't change anything. My recommendation is periodically (or before every flight if you can be bothered) to check the sensor status in the GO app and then check the orientation arrow before takeoff. If those are good then calibration is completely unnecessary.

 

[sar104]

The main problem is you can have large variations in magnetic fields in some parts of the world and theres no way of knowing ahead of time.
If you could ensure people would calibrate correctly then theres no harm. But it seems lots dont do it correctly so stand a chance of messing it up.

I transported my M1 11,000 miles, didn't calibrate and still worked fine but that wasn't the most sensible way to approach it.

What changes is declination, inclination and field strength. The aircraft measures inclination and field strength on power up and determines declination from the built-in global model. The only thing that would stop it from calculating declination would be no GPS positioning but, in that case, it will be in OPTI or ATTI mode anyway and doesn't care about declination. The compass calibration cannot measure declination even if it wanted to.

 

[gnirtS]

There are variations in field strength and various other things so a "new" location can cause that. Field strength and direction can vary locally so by "distance" it probably just tries to cater to that.
As for after a period of no use - it depends how it actually stores the data more than anything else. I know for a fact several of my dive computers will need re calibrating after being powered off for a few months for example. It really does depend how DJI implemented the compass and the actual storage and profile.

Certainly the map can tell if something is way off (which is usually the case with EM interference and metal nearby) but its not easy to show it being a bit off or on the threshold of being bad.
The mavic only has one compass now so potentially if it did cross check data between them on older models they may have changed the manual as they've lost that so they want something guaranteed clean.

 

[sar104]

There are variations in field strength and various other things so a "new" location can cause that. Field strength and direction can vary locally so by "distance" it probably just tries to cater to that.
As for after a period of no use - it depends how it actually stores the data more than anything else. I know for a fact several of my dive computers will need re calibrating after being powered off for a few months for example. It really does depend how DJI implemented the compass and the actual storage and profile.

Certainly the map can tell if something is way off (which is usually the case with EM interference and metal nearby) but its not easy to show it being a bit off or on the threshold of being bad.
The mavic only has one compass now so potentially if it did cross check data between them on older models they may have changed the manual as they've lost that so they want something guaranteed clean.

The "distance" thing still makes no sense. As I said, it measures the field vector (strength and direction) on startup - it doesn't need a calibration to do that. And it calculates declination - a calibration simply cannot determine that. The only thing the calibration is for is to subtract out the magnetic field of the aircraft components themselves, and those don't change with distance or, generally, with time, only by adding or changing components or exposing the aircraft to a strong magnetic field.

 

[Bubby]

DJI has been the source of endless confusion on this subject. It often appears that the authors of the instruction manuals just don't talk to the engineers. So all this conflicting advice is supported, to some degree, by instructions and statements from DJI.

Most of the time, even if unnecessary, calibrating the compass or IMU is not going to do any harm as long as you check afterwards that the sensor values show as green and good in the Go app. Also, especially with respect to the yaw value, which is set from the compass at startup, make sure that, before takeoff, the aircraft orientation arrow on the display agrees with the direction that the aircraft is actually facing. If those are all good then the aircraft is very unlikely to have problems in flight.

The other important thing to note is that if there is magnetic interference at the takeoff location, calibrating cannot fix that and will likely make things worse. The only solution is to find a better location.

I have done the IMU calibration, but am wondering what if the bird is slightly off during the process of moving it in all directions, will a little tilt or the like throw the whole drone off?

 

[sar104]

I have done the IMU calibration, but am wondering what if the bird is slightly off during the process of moving it in all directions, will a little tilt or the like throw the whole drone off?

IMU calibration or compass calibration? It's stationary for the IMU calibration.

 

[Turn11]

My first drone was a MPP, I calibrated the IMU and Compass because the U/M said and some YouTube video's suggested.
My M2P did not have any warnings and there were no pref-light errors so I did not calibrate either.

 

[Mike Mas]

For the most part, once you calibrate when getting the machine, you should only redo the compass if you move to a different location. UN-necessary calibrations both IMU and Compass are the cause for many problems since if its performed incorrectly, it can lead to numerous problems. Some of my Mavic's and Phantoms have only been calibrated 2-3 times in the past 2 years.

Fly Safe Mike