Calibrating Compasses

[Logger]

No, number 1 compass slider goes from far left to about 1/3 towards right and I think was gray. The number 2 compass slider is green and only a little towards right.
Marty

Marty next time you see this, try picking up the Mavic and turning it 90 degrees.
If the app prompts you to calibrate the compass, try moving the mavic first. Might be ferrous materiel about. Mine has prompted me quite few time for this reason. Moving has fixed it. .

I see the worst "interference" indication facing South on mine. If you are Northern hemisphere it will be the other way around I suspect.

I just did a quick compass swing to demonstrate. I can use the interference indication readout as a compass, to find south

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Aircraft orientation is visible right under no1 compass interference numbers & in live video.

BTW Only ever calibrated the once out of the box in 300+ flights

 

[Marty Markoe]

Marty next time you see this, try picking up the Mavic and turning it 90 degrees.
If the app prompts you to calibrate the compass, try moving the mavic first. Might be ferrous materiel about. Mine has prompted me quite few time for this reason. Moving has fixed it. .
BTW Only ever calibrated the once out of the box in 300+ flights

I've flown my P4 dozens of times from the exact same spot on driveway and know there is no interference. I will do the calibration today even if there is no message. That should fix the problem.
Thanks,
Marty

 

[Logger]

No worries. Wasn't suggesting there was.

Well re-reading, I see how you read it that way, when I mentioned ferrous material. But was not suggesting that to be your issue, as you never got a calibrate message. Just pointing out that if you do receive the Calibration message, invariably moving the Mavic to an interfence free location will get rid of it.

My video simply shows how orientation of the mavic and its compass effects the interference reading.

 

[younumpty]

And I have never crashed or rear-ended anyone when texting or filling out forum messages while driving.... CRAP.... disregard...

I was too polite to say it!
I've had my drones of which I own a P2 P3 adv P4 F550 F450 S1000 P4 pro and Mavic all scream calibrate at one time or another from my flying field which is a wifi black spot with no power or steel for hundreds of yards (mile actually) so if you're not getting them your drone is different to all my DJI products..
Maybe I'm too cautious if you can be, but have had flyaway's anyway. Maybe I'm jinxed or despite the fact that I can invert a 25 year old nitro helicopter with no gyroscopes (electronic balance devices) attached I'm a crap pilot. ??
Just wish we had no frills manual mode with basic three axis stabilisation which for drones is needed as they are inherently unstable anyway.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Marty Markoe]

As re my original post, finally got to fly Mavic yesterday. Pre-flight still showed compass one way off. Did the simple calibration, first since receiving Mavic, and compasses were spot on. Having flown the Phantom 4 for almost a year and now the Maverick, I do not believe you need to calibrate the compass each time. However, I will now routinely check the compasses and IMU before every flight. Will only recalibrate if they are not spot on.
Marty

 

[Filmscum]

As with the P3P and Inspire 1, the best thing you can do is check your mods before each flight and if they are good there is no need to calibrate. I have made it part of my pre-flight check list. On the P3P and I1 if mod values for gyro, accelerometer and compass are good (0, .99-1.01, 1400-1600 respectively) I fly. Yes things are a little different with the Mavic, but the equivalent of good mod values are just making sure both compasses are far left in the green. If they are don't calibrate. I have traveled over 1000 miles with mine and have never needed to calibrate because those values remained within the good range.

I know people say you can't do it any harm by calibrating before each flight but truth is you most assuredly can. If you get a bad compass calibration and don't know it the outcome may not be good (of course it may be just fine but why risk it).

 

[tiparoch]

Interesting reading this thread. I have had several hundred flights with Phantom 2 and 4. Not such a newbie, but new with my new Mavic. All updated firmware,. All seemed ok, everything checked out but 20 sec. into fist flight ' Mag Intef, check app'. then disappeared, Long story short, 4 short ish flights and all started out ok, all eventually had 'Mag Interf'. ad would appear and disappear. Then bird would freak , esp with RTHome. Again all seemed ok with IMU and compass, no prompts to calibrate. I was following the instruction manual, "don't calibrate unless prompted to." Yet something was weird Finally on advice from a kind soul here...I DID recalibrate and now all is good. So... if you have 'Mag Intef. cronically, DO calibrate, even though you may not be prompted to....I have had solid flights since.

 

[LakeTravis]

Interesting reading this thread. I have had several hundred flights with Phantom 2 and 4. Not such a newbie, but new with my new Mavic. All updated firmware,. All seemed ok, everything checked out but 20 sec. into fist flight ' Mag Intef, check app'. then disappeared, Long story short, 4 short ish flights and all started out ok, all eventually had 'Mag Interf'. ad would appear and disappear. Then bird would freak , esp with RTHome. Again all seemed ok with IMU and compass, no prompts to calibrate. I was following the instruction manual, "don't calibrate unless prompted to." Yet something was weird Finally on advice from a kind soul here...I DID recalibrate and now all is good. So... if you have 'Mag Intef. cronically, DO calibrate, even though you may not be prompted to....I have had solid flights since.

Kudos to the kind soul who advised you. I too have several years, hours and miles of experience with quads dating back to the first generation Phantoms. I have always done the calibration dance before each day's flight regardless of instructions of indications that one was not needed (on the Mavic). It can't hurt as long as you follow the obvious precautions to avoid standing too close to metal objects, etc. I never mess with the IMU calibrations unless that need is suspected or indicated. As a general aviation pilot, I can't imagine ever taking off without setting the compass to either the magnetic compass or a GPS based compass. As far as "doing the dance, if nothing else, it makes people look at you funny. I live in Austin and we are PROUD of it, and it's even part of our motto "Keep Austin Weird".

Here's an example of how weird Austin can be. This is Leslie, he IS a "he" (obviously) but never dressed like a man. It was NOT unusual to see him strolling down the street wearing a THONG and bikini top (NOT a pretty sight). He was a fixture in downtown and south Austin for many, many years (homeless for most of them) and even ran for mayor and received a TON of votes. Passed away several years ago. There was even a set of refrigerator magnets available so you could "dress Leslie" in a variety of cross-dresser appropriate outfits--I still have one. You've got to admit, that's weird.

And if life in Austin sounds fun, it is. Even if you don't think it does, here are more reasons why it will change you forever:

BuzzFeed - 42 Reasons Living In Austin Ruins You For Life



Here is a copy of my pre-flight checklist:

 

[tiparoch]

Kudos to the kind soul who advised you. I too have several years, hours and miles of experience with quads dating back to the first generation Phantoms. I have always done the calibration dance before each day's flight regardless of instructions of indications that one was not needed (on the Mavic). It can't hurt as long as you follow the obvious precautions to avoid standing too close to metal objects, etc. I never mess with the IMU calibrations unless that need is suspected or indicated. As a general aviation pilot, I can't imagine ever taking off without setting the compass to either the magnetic compass or a GPS based compass. As far as "doing the dance, if nothing else, it makes people look at you funny. I live in Austin and we are PROUD of it, and it's even part of our motto "Keep Austin Weird".

Here's an example of how weird Austin can be. This is Leslie, he IS a "he" (obviously) but never dressed like a man. It was NOT unusual to see him strolling down the street wearing a THONG and bikini top (NOT a pretty sight). He was a fixture in downtown and south Austin for many, many years (homeless for most of them) and even ran for mayor and received a TON of votes. Passed away several years ago. There was even a set of refrigerator magnets available so you could "dress Leslie" in a variety of cross-dresser appropriate outfits--I still have one. You've got to admit, that's weird.

And if life in Austin sounds fun, it is. Even if you don't think it does, here are more reasons why it will change you forever:

BuzzFeed - 42 Reasons Living In Austin Ruins You For Life

View attachment 9033

Here is a copy of my pre-flight checklist:

View attachment 9031

Hey Leslie,
thanks for the photo of yourself.... er...ooops. Just kidding . I actually remember he/she being mentioned in a Robin Williams routine. Thanks or your words.. and input.... Austin is a great place. lake Travis as well... Happy Flights!

 

[LakeTravis]

Austin is incredible and the fact that Lake Travis is here is, makes it more so. I thanks me lucky stars (or maybe it's me magically delicious lucky charms) that I actually get to live on the lake. Leslie was such a fixture in Austin--I forgot to mention one of his favorite adornments, a faux diamond tiara (it just made the ensemble more complete). He received it not long before he passed away upon being honored as "Queen of Austin", along with a plaque downtown befitting such an honor. Though we all miss him, the image of him strolling Congress Ave in a thong will forever be seared into our brains--there are just SOME things you can't unsee, no matter how hard you try!

 

[John Locke]

Just pointing out that if you do receive the Calibration message, invariably moving the Mavic to an interference free location will get rid of it.

This is very true. If you get a compass error message when you start to take off at a new location, before you re-calibrate move over 50' or 100'. You'll likely be fine. In those cases where moving disabled the calibration prompt, if you were to calibrate where the error occurred, it could result in a failed calibration, or a bad calibration. But if you are 100+ miles away from your last calibration (especially East or West), it's a good idea to calibrate regardless, that's just me.

 

[tiparoch]

Austin is incredible and the fact that Lake Travis is here is, makes it more so. I thanks me lucky stars (or maybe it's me magically delicious lucky charms) that I actually get to live on the lake. Leslie was such a fixture in Austin--I forgot to mention one of his favorite adornments, a faux diamond tiara (it just made the ensemble more complete). He received it not long before he passed away upon being honored as "Queen of Austin", along with a plaque downtown befitting such an honor. Though we all miss him, the image of him strolling Congress Ave in a thong will forever be seared into our brains--there are just SOME things you can't unsee, no matter how hard you try!

View attachment 9060

View attachment 9059

thanks for that! I was always a curious what Leslie was actually like...

 

[_milo_]

Good info here,

The old days they told you to compass calibrate every flight, because they had to blame the user for the fly-aways, so blamed them with not calibrating. It was bad advice then, and bad advice now.

I was flying with a friend yesterday, and was VO while he was operating his Mavic, and when returning and close to home, his Mavic went into a toilet bowl, he had no errors come up, if it was anything else, I'd have told him to switch to atti, but the Mavic can't. If you've ever seen an AC go into TB it will be slowly getting worse, he got his down, but just clipped my trucks bumper with one of the front props (no damage).

Had him check his compass values, and all were in the green, although one bar was further out, about midway, I'm not sure if hes ever calibrated his compass (dont think he ever did), so we went out to the middle of a grassy field, to get a good clean calibration, on completion all the values were flat, and subsequent flights looked good. I mentioned to him he could try doing a 360 yaw, or two, while in the air if it happened again, I've seen that clear out a compass error once myself. Hopefully should be good.

I found it troubling that it would go into a toilet bowl, and not throw out errors, and go into Atti mode, I'm not sure what firmware, hes on.

I've only done one compass calibration on mine, in a grassy area, where I do all my aircraft.