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Compass Error?

Dejongdude38

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Good evening, community. I am a new pilot of a Mavic Pro Platinum. I keep encountering the issue of compass errors because of magnetic interference. It keeps going from having the error to GPS mode over and over again. I am afraid to fly. Please give tips or help me:)
 
Is your Mavic near anything metallic? Did you attach anything metallic to it? Did you try calibrating the compass?
 
Good evening, community. I am a new pilot of a Mavic Pro Platinum. I keep encountering the issue of compass errors because of magnetic interference. It keeps going from having the error to GPS mode over and over again. I am afraid to fly. Please give tips or help me:)

Congratulations on getting your unit. Many of us are still waiting. Would you mind stating when you ordered it and when it arrived? As to the situation your described, I can tell you that I have been given that error when launching my P3S from on top of concrete, probably because of all the metal in the foundation. This happened to me at home over my driveway and also in town at the edge of a shopping center parking area. In fact, I went into atti mode when I launched, had to land quickly as a breeze was moving the unit close to power poles. I moved over about 25 feet to a gravel road and had no issues then. Perhaps this is your problem, too. Let me know if this solves it.
 
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Just move the drone from another spot and see if it cleared the error.

^^ This ^^^. As a rule, whenever I get a new quad I take it to a nice, big field to make sure everything is A-OK. Start low and slow, and then ramp it up and out. That way if something happens, it's not over a lake or someone's house. Saved my butt with a cool little Bugs quad that had a major compass issue.
 
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Occasionally the compass can be bad. If you see compass errors after moving to different locations and after calibrating, it could be bad. I've had to replace my rear compass/GPS module. There are 2 compasses. One on rear and one in the front nose. If compass abnormalities are found, it will switch to the other compass. In my case the compass got worse and worse until it finally just says "Disconnected" permanently. Mavic still flew fine using the other remaining compass in the nose.
 
FWIW, I just got my MPP yesterday. It was already dark by the time I got home so I only made a brief test flight. I went out into the back yard to a spot from which I have successfully flown my Spark many times without any issues whatsoever. However, when I was preparing to fly the MPP I kept getting a compass error. Note that there is nothing in this spot which looks obviously like a potential source of interference, so this compass error message had me perplexed. So I went through the compass calibration procedure, but that failed. After a couple attempts I walked about 10 feet away and did the calibration procedure again, this time with success. I then went back to my original spot and flew the MPP with no error indications.

Are the compasses in the Mavic more sensitive than those in the Spark? Or are these the signs of a defective/dying compass module? :confused:
 
You just got your MPP which traveled half way around the world to get to you. Give it a few more flights, recalibrate. Go thru a few cycles. Remember these are electronic gadgets, fickle at times like computers. My compass went out of whack one day when I went to town and launched from a paved parking lot because, I guess, there were metal bars buried in the concrete or maybe it was caused by a nearby transmitting tower. I had to land quickly as it went into atti mode on some grass about 30 yards away. I re-calibrated the compass and all was fine. Go to a few more places, different from your back yard, and see how it behaves before you assume a malady with the drone.
 
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From my experiences in the electronic field if a component is failing as in such thing as intermittent then the there is in my eyes a design flaw with the electronic gps/compass... I read so many gps/compass issues its ridiculous... Everyone trys to band aid the situation by sayin do this do that... Mine was a week old & flew 3 times & charged 3 times... And smelled something burnt after playin simulator for 5-7min & i had to calibrate imu & compass only to crash... Dji needs to redesign the gps/compass issue...
 
There are literally thousands upon thousands of Mavics out there being used daily with no issues. If you are having an individual problem with your compass it would be time to deal with your individual issue, not call for a redesign of the product. Either contact customer support, or better, reach out to a local dealer that does repair to have it checked out. There are many factors that affect the compass. If you "smelled something burning" then that is definitely something to get checked BEFORE flying again possibly losing your drone.
 
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You just got your MPP which traveled half way around the world to get to you.

Fair enough, but my Spark came to me from the same place and never had these issues.

Give it a few more flights, recalibrate. Go thru a few cycles. Remember these are electronic gadgets, fickle at times like computers. My compass went out of whack one day when I went to town and launched from a paved parking lot because, I guess, there were metal bars buried in the concrete or maybe it was caused by a nearby transmitting tower. I had to land quickly as it went into atti mode on some grass about 30 yards away. I re-calibrated the compass and all was fine. Go to a few more places, different from your back yard, and see how it behaves before you assume a malady with the drone.

Proceeding with extreme caution. :D
 
Is your Mavic near anything metallic? Did you attach anything metallic to it? Did you try calibrating the compass?

Mike, there are apps for smart phones, in my case iPhone, that allegedly determine if there is some magnetic sources nearby. I've downloaded the app and scanned various areas. It always picked up something but nothing significant that I can tell. I put the phone near my car and it went off the scale.

Do you have any experience with the smart phone magnetic apps? I randomly chose (free) Teslameter 11.

Not sure if this would be helpful to scan a launching area before flying.
 
Do you have any experience with the smart phone magnetic apps? I randomly chose (free) Teslameter 11.
I installed Teslameter too. While the app seems to work just fine, I'm not sure exactly how to know how strong of a magnetic field it takes to negatively affect the Mavic compass. With some experimenting, I suppose you could figure that out.

There's an easier way to do this without using that app. Set your Mavic on the ground, power it up, and watch the red aircraft symbol on the map in DJI GO (or the attitude indicator at the bottom, left of DJI GO if you cannot see the map). If the red aircraft symbol is pointing in the wrong direction or it's rotating very slowly, then the Mavic's compass is likely being affected by a nearby magnetic metal object.

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I installed Teslameter too. While the app seems to work just fine, I'm not sure exactly how to know how strong of a magnetic field it takes to negatively affect the Mavic compass. With some experimenting, I suppose you could figure that out.

There's an easier way to do this without using that app. Set your Mavic on the ground, power it up, and watch the red aircraft symbol on the map in DJI GO (or the attitude indicator at the bottom, left of DJI GO if you cannot see the map). If the red aircraft symbol is pointing in the wrong direction or it's rotating very slowly, then the Mavic's compass is likely being affected by a nearby magnetic metal object.

View attachment 25897

Great info to know. Thanks Mike
 
Go ahead and take off and hover to see if it goes away.
Compass is only used for heading so it won't hurt to go straight up and down.
 
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Good evening, community. I am a new pilot of a Mavic Pro Platinum. I keep encountering the issue of compass errors because of magnetic interference. It keeps going from having the error to GPS mode over and over again. I am afraid to fly. Please give tips or help me:)

Probably taking off from a bad spot like some have already suggested. Rebar in concrete can cause issues, underground pipes, etc. There is one spot on my driveway that works...nowhere else due to metal contained in the cement I assume.
 
There are literally thousands upon thousands of Mavics out there being used daily with no issues. If you are having an individual problem with your compass it would be time to deal with your individual issue, not call for a redesign of the product. Either contact customer support, or better, reach out to a local dealer that does repair to have it checked out. There are many factors that affect the compass. If you "smelled something burning" then that is definitely something to get checked BEFORE flying again possibly losing your drone.
I have to agree with you on that because any time you smell something burning is pretty much considered a catastrophic failure! And to go and launch your aircraft out there after an episode such as this would be completely irresponsible and just pretty much crazy!
 
Try hand launching if there's metal in the ground, that works for me every time.
 
I wouldn't fly it with a bad compass. It should calibrate fine over grass. If you see issues from many locations, then the compass is bad. I have a bad one myself and changed it. It was so bad that when I took off and tried to fly straight, it would start curving off to the left and go sideways. Very hard to control if the compass is bad.
 
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