I flew it

[Multicoptertec]

I was talking to a worker from DJI the other day and he said the IMU should be calibrated before every flight, but who is actually going to do that? The IMU calibration would waste 10% of you battery before you even get it in the air.


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Are you sure he didn't mean the compass? It would be ridiculous to calibrate the IMU before each flight.

 

[Wacker2611]

No disrespect meant but that's codswallop(the post about calibrating imu before every flight)


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[south597]

Yeah I'm sure. I was having a issue with the camera so I contacted dji support and he said they recommend IMU calibration before ever flight. I completely agree though, definitely overkill.


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[The Editor]

I was talking to a worker from DJI the other day and he said the IMU should be calibrated before every flight, but who is actually going to do that? The IMU calibration would waste 10% of you battery before you even get it in the air.


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That DJI individual doesn't have a clue what he is talking about.

 

[Southern Phantom]

I've had a P3P for over a year and a half, and am waiting for my Mavic to be shipped.

Based on the P3P experience with many weekly flights, reading articles and many posts on its forum -- the IMU should be calibrated (1) after each firmware update, (2) if the unit gets badly bumped (hard landing, rough travel), or (3) if it is flying oddly.

It's probably a good idea to calibrate it upon new arrival. It will rarely tell you when it needs it.

But if it's truly flying OK, there's no need to mess with it.

And yes, it needs to be well-chilled before calibration, then calibrated on a level surface that's verified with a level.

There were lots of arguments on the Phantom forum about putting it a refrigerator for 20 minutes before calibrating. That has always worked perfectly for me, because I live in warm climate. Refrigerators are not below freezing and are free of humidity. I place the Phantom in a trash bag while chilling, to avoid slight condensation when it comes out of the fridge. Then remove the bag and calibrate on a level table immediately, before it warms up.

The compass should be calibrated when the unit is flown more than 50-100 miles from its last calibration, or if the app says there are compass errors. Sometimes taking off from a surface with metal (even reinforced concrete) will confuse it.

But on two occasions, I traveled cross-country with it, forgot to calibrate the compass, and it flew just fine.

I suspect that the DJI agent meant to say compass, not IMU. But in reality, nothing needs to be calibrated before every flight.

If everything is working well, leave it alone. If not, do the assorted calibrations.

 

[chazzm]

Amen to that! Agree 100%


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[Southern Phantom]

Since I wrote my post above, my Mavic arrived.

Everything connected properly and worked just fine.

Other than its amazingly clever compact folding design, flying is not all that different from the P3P, but with a few new interesting features -- to be explored at a later date. All the basic up/down/forward/backward movements and the screen displays are very familiar and comfortable.

Take care to unpack and open/unfold it carefully -- it seems a bit fragile at first glance, compared to their larger units -- and read everything twice, especially if you've not had a DJI drone before.

Regarding this thread -- I was so excited to play with it, I totally forgot to do the IMU and compass calibrations, of course. But it worked perfectly anyway. And that's after it came all the way from China via FedEx.

It is worth doing those adjustments from time to time, as needed. But DJI seems to have done a good job with this unit!

 

[tomnjfl]

We are opposites... I didnt calibrate anything before flying... not even the compass. And it still flies great. Who knows whats best...

There's a lot of debate about this topic it seems. My thoughts are only do calibrations if the app tells you to.

Out of the box, mine only asked me to do a compass calibration once before my first flight. I've now had at least 15 flights and it has not asked for any other calibrations since then, and it flies perfectly amazing.

 

[toegema]

I was talking to a worker from DJI the other day and he said the IMU should be calibrated before every flight, but who is actually going to do that? The IMU calibration would waste 10% of you battery before you even get it in the air.


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He probably ment compass


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