Compass Grief ii

[meriachee]

I bought the Mavic in March. The compass needed to be calibrated every time I turned it on. After three tickets got opened and closed without any action by dji, I wound up in a chat window where the firmware was screwed with and settings and memory cards and recalibrate and on and on. DAYS later, they finally opened a ticket and with less than 10 hours of flight time, the Mavic was off to California.
A month later it came back, and worked ok the very first time I turned it on, and went promptly back to needing to be calibrated. Today the firmware got downgraded to .800, and I'm about to go out to the field again and try it.
This could be a cool little device, but the overhead in getting it to actually work is not insignificant, and the support is very much less than stellar.

 

[JeepDSL]

I can't comment on DJI service because I've never used it; however, I have 5 Mavics and the only times I've been directed to re-calibrate the compass are when I'm around lots of magnetic interference:

• On my deck which has steel railing
• Near my computer

When you calibrate, make sure you are in a location free of interference - an open field away from buildings, concrete (the rebar can cause interference),utility lines, chain link fences, etc.

 

[meriachee]

.800 firmware is actually worse, firstly that it doesn't fire up clean either, but now there's a banner telling me to upgrade to .900. That soccer goalpost 100 yards away must have an effect on the wooden picnic table at the other end of the field. That'll be what they claim next.

 

[meriachee]

@Masheen Funny you should ask. I checked the original invoice against the current unit and as I suspected, the serial numbers were different. So the repair guys either sent a new one or a very clean refurb. I'd suggest a new one, it was spotless.

 

[meriachee]

Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise. Full blown imu and compass calibration every change, and firmware reload.

 

[xman1]

.800 firmware is actually worse, firstly that it doesn't fire up clean either, but now there's a banner telling me to upgrade to .900. That soccer goalpost 100 yards away must have an effect on the wooden picnic table at the other end of the field. That'll be what they claim next.

There are nails in the wooden picnic table.

 

[meriachee]

Yeah, after another week of discussion with dji support, and numerous firmware up and down, reloads, resets, configs, calibrations and test after test, it has been determined that this unit, too, has a bad compass.
Maybe the UPS guys will start a mileage/points program. If I can't use the Mavic, maybe I can get enough points for a set of wiper blades or something.

 

[meriachee]

Not only was the problem replicated at the repair center in the second unit, it's bad enough that the THIRD new Mavic is on it's way to me now. Hopefully third time's a charm, because this business of the Mavic covering more ground in the back of a UPS truck than in the air here is starting to get a little annoying.

 

[meriachee]

There are nails in the wooden picnic table.

@xman1 Yeah, that's got to be it. Or the Chernobyl recycled steel in the goal post 100 yards away.
Considering that now I've personally seen two of these units with the exact same problem, I go back to the thought that maybe there's too much electronics getting jammed into these tight spaces.