Sideward flight + yaw = horizon tilt?

DRohn · Dec 27, 2016

So far this is my only complaint with the Mavic, and after doing some searching, it seems that this is a fairly common issue. The solutions I've come across seem to only correct for static horizon tilt (ie take off and the horizon is not level). The other answers I've come across are "3 axis gimbals will always have that problem" and "nothing you can do, live with it and wait for an update."

I'll be flying straight forward, and the horizon looks good, if I start moving forward and sideward, horizon is still pretty level, but when I add yaw, the horizon tilts. When going back to straight forward flight, the horizon levels out again. Is there any setting to adjust for this?

There's a couple clips in this video where it is noticeable, although I edited out the shots where it was really bad.

DRohn · Dec 27, 2016

Disabling "synchronizing gimbal pan follow" seems to help

Anthony · Dec 27, 2016

DRohn said:
Disabling "synchronizing gimbal pan follow" seems to help

Were is ghis setting ?

Syphon · Dec 27, 2016

I must say, beautiful video. I wish my area had something like this to catch with the drone. Living in Florida, we have trees and flat land lol.

I also have been having the issue lately with the gimbal not being level with the horizon.

DRohn · Dec 27, 2016

Anthony said:
Were is ghis setting ?

Located in gimbal settings, under advanced settings. When it is enabled, the gimbal will turn slightly to the direction the a/c is yawing.

I think the difference is:

Gimbal pan follow on: gimbal operates on 3axis, yaw, pitch, and roll. Gives smoother panning shots, good for slow flight.

Gimbal pan follow off: gimbal operates on pitch and roll axis only (gimbal always faces forward). I think it keeps a more level horizon when panning while flying diagonal/sideways (one less axis to stabilize, yaw is always fixed to airframe)

Syphon said:
I must say, beautiful video. I wish my area had something like this to catch with the drone. Living in Florida, we have trees and flat land lol.

Thanks! Right at the end of my battery, a guy who worked for the city of Scottsdale informed me that drones were prohibited from "taking off or landing" in the park, and that the rangers would fine me if they saw. Flying there was fine, just the taking off and landing part was prohibited...

Syphon · Dec 27, 2016

DRohn said:
Thanks! Right at the end of my battery, a guy who worked for the city of Scottsdale informed me that drones were prohibited from "taking off or landing" in the park, and that the rangers would fine me if they saw. Flying there was fine, just the taking off and landing part was prohibited...

That's why you stand in the park, but have a friend right outside the park turn the Mavic on, along the side of the road, launch, fly, then land back right outside along the road lol.

State Parks in Florida are the same way. You can't take off or land but you can fly through them no problem.

curso88 · Mar 1, 2017

Hi! I've been investigating this phenomenon. Today I did a cold IMU calibration, I put my mavic in the refrigerator to cool it (DJI does the IMU calibrations of the controller boards before the assembly in special rooms at a temperature of 4 degrees Celsius), then I made one Calibration of IMU on a level surface. With this temperature the calibration of the accelerometers produces a more perfect BIAS. In my tests of this afternoon I have verified that the problem of has minimized much, although it has not totally disappeared, because this phenomenon is normal and is provoked by the force G applied in the change of direction. It can also be minimized by increasing the Roll Gain to reduce the angle of inclination of the aircraft. The increase must be in steps of 5 until the desired effect is achieved. This problem is due to the speed of recovery of the gimbal buffer. DJI has eliminated this advanced gimbal setting in the latest versions of DJI GO. Many users were reporting jumps and falls of gimbal and DJI has increased the time of recovery of the gimbal buffer in the last two versions of fimware. You can consult DJI after sales service but they are employees without technical knowledge. They will not tell you this. My recommendation for you is that you perform a cold calibration of the IMU and gimbal and make some adjustments in the gain of the Roll and also reduce the Exponential of the stick corresponding to the lateral displacements. We can not do anything until DJI hears complaints about this, and decides to increase again the speed of recovery of the gimbal's buffer. But by increasing this speed, the performance of gimbal in cold environments decreases. The only solution to this problem would be to isolate the gimbal controller plate in helium gas, as do the military engineers in the intelligent electronic guidance systems of UAV. DJI may not know this. Each Mavic is different, and requires slight adjustments. I hope I have clarified your doubts and concerns. You can check my test result:

flyNfrank · Mar 1, 2017

curso88 said:
Hi! I've been investigating this phenomenon. Today I did a cold IMU calibration, I put my mavic in the refrigerator to cool it (DJI does the IMU calibrations of the controller boards before the assembly in special rooms at a temperature of 4 degrees Celsius), then I made one Calibration of IMU on a level surface. With this temperature the calibration of the accelerometers produces a more perfect BIAS. In my tests of this afternoon I have verified that the problem of has minimized much, although it has not totally disappeared, because this phenomenon is normal and is provoked by the force G applied in the change of direction. It can also be minimized by increasing the Roll Gain to reduce the angle of inclination of the aircraft. The increase must be in steps of 5 until the desired effect is achieved. This problem is due to the speed of recovery of the gimbal buffer. DJI has eliminated this advanced gimbal setting in the latest versions of DJI GO. Many users were reporting jumps and falls of gimbal and DJI has increased the time of recovery of the gimbal buffer in the last two versions of fimware. You can consult DJI after sales service but they are employees without technical knowledge. They will not tell you this. My recommendation for you is that you perform a cold calibration of the IMU and gimbal and make some adjustments in the gain of the Roll and also reduce the Exponential of the stick corresponding to the lateral displacements. We can not do anything until DJI hears complaints about this, and decides to increase again the speed of recovery of the gimbal's buffer. But by increasing this speed, the performance of gimbal in cold environments decreases. The only solution to this problem would be to isolate the gimbal controller plate in helium gas, as do the military engineers in the intelligent electronic guidance systems of UAV. DJI may not know this. Each Mavic is different, and requires slight adjustments. I hope I have clarified your doubts and concerns. You can check my test result:

Whoa...What's up with the "IMU Initializing. Do not move aircraft...."? Also your screen display going dark for around a minute. Those are Not normal. Your refrigerator to IMU calibration apparently did not respond in the manner that you had set out for it to. I believe I would 1st consider doing another IMU calibration and get things back to being closer to normal once again.

Then you were launching from a dirt, dust, and gravel surface. If nothing else take your shirt off and launch from it oppose to being on a surface that will at some point reduce the life of your aircraft. Or...use the floor mat in the car you were driving.

The tilted horizon comes from the "roll" of the aircraft which will be worse in stronger winds

stratos · Mar 2, 2017

curso88 said:
Hi! I've been investigating this phenomenon. Today I did a cold IMU calibration, I put my mavic in the refrigerator to cool it (DJI does the IMU calibrations of the controller boards before the assembly in special rooms at a temperature of 4 degrees Celsius), then I made one Calibration of IMU on a level surface. With this temperature the calibration of the accelerometers produces a more perfect BIAS. In my tests of this afternoon I have verified that the problem of has minimized much, although it has not totally disappeared, because this phenomenon is normal and is provoked by the force G applied in the change of direction. It can also be minimized by increasing the Roll Gain to reduce the angle of inclination of the aircraft. The increase must be in steps of 5 until the desired effect is achieved. This problem is due to the speed of recovery of the gimbal buffer. DJI has eliminated this advanced gimbal setting in the latest versions of DJI GO. Many users were reporting jumps and falls of gimbal and DJI has increased the time of recovery of the gimbal buffer in the last two versions of fimware. You can consult DJI after sales service but they are employees without technical knowledge. They will not tell you this. My recommendation for you is that you perform a cold calibration of the IMU and gimbal and make some adjustments in the gain of the Roll and also reduce the Exponential of the stick corresponding to the lateral displacements. We can not do anything until DJI hears complaints about this, and decides to increase again the speed of recovery of the gimbal's buffer. But by increasing this speed, the performance of gimbal in cold environments decreases. The only solution to this problem would be to isolate the gimbal controller plate in helium gas, as do the military engineers in the intelligent electronic guidance systems of UAV. DJI may not know this. Each Mavic is different, and requires slight adjustments. I hope I have clarified your doubts and concerns. You can check my test result:

Cold IMU calibration.... taken to the letter lol.
Please please please do not try a hot IMU calibration with the oven next!

stratos · Mar 2, 2017

flyNfrank said:
Whoa...What's up with the "IMU Initializing. Do not move aircraft...."? Also your screen display going dark for around a minute. Those are Not normal. Your refrigerator to IMU calibration apparently did not respond in the manner that you had set out for it to. I believe I would 1st consider doing another IMU calibration and get things back to being closer to normal once again.

Then you were launching from a dirt, dust, and gravel surface. If nothing else take your shirt off and launch from it oppose to being on a surface that will at some point reduce the life of your aircraft. Or...use the floor mat in the car you were driving.

The tilted horizon comes from the "roll" of the aircraft which will be worse in stronger winds

Refrigeration will definitely cause some water condensation inside the craft, which might fry some internal circuity and roast the sensors. So yeah I do not recommend refrigerate any electronic device.

Bintryin · Mar 2, 2017

Great Video

curso88 · Mar 2, 2017

flyNfrank said:
Whoa...What's up with the "IMU Initializing. Do not move aircraft...."? Also your screen display going dark for around a minute. Those are Not normal. Your refrigerator to IMU calibration apparently did not respond in the manner that you had set out for it to. I believe I would 1st consider doing another IMU calibration and get things back to being closer to normal once again.

Then you were launching from a dirt, dust, and gravel surface. If nothing else take your shirt off and launch from it oppose to being on a surface that will at some point reduce the life of your aircraft. Or...use the floor mat in the car you were driving.

The tilted horizon comes from the "roll" of the aircraft which will be worse in stronger winds

I've had 4 Mavic units. When you perform the first IMU calibration, the IMU initialization message always appears. The black screen is because I did not close it immediately.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

flyNfrank · Mar 2, 2017

curso88 said:
I've had 4 Mavic units. When you perform the first IMU calibration, the IMU initialization message always appears. The black screen is because I did not close it immediately.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

The message you received will appear when something about the process was not correct. Red triangles are a sign of something being wrong.

I calibrated my IMU and I don't have any messages or dark screens. It also has no delays and is ready for startup in an instant.

curso88 · Mar 2, 2017

flyNfrank said:
The message you received will appear when something about the process was not correct. Red triangles are a sign of something being wrong.

I calibrated my IMU and I don't have any messages or dark screens. It also has no delays and is ready for startup in an instant.

This message "IMU Initialization. Please do not move or turn off aircraft" around few seconds is normal.