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Compass issue I think

downtown0309

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Jan 18, 2020
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Tennessee
This Mavic Mini is my first "real " drone so I'm a noob and trying to figure this all out. The weather finally broke here so I have been able to fly it a few times. It's amazing. Only problem is that on the Fly app screen, bottom center where it show's what direction the drone is and which way it's facing, it is never right. I tried calibrating the compass several times and it still is off a lot. Anything I'm doing wrong?
 
This Mavic Mini is my first "real " drone so I'm a noob and trying to figure this all out. The weather finally broke here so I have been able to fly it a few times. It's amazing. Only problem is that on the Fly app screen, bottom center where it show's what direction the drone is and which way it's facing, it is never right. I tried calibrating the compass several times and it still is off a lot. Anything I'm doing wrong?
I have had this issue once and realised that it happened after I had changed my usual take-off point from a wooden board in the middle of my garden to the edge of my patio - I then remembered that the patio had a metal mesh embedded in the base to keep it all stable! Since returning to launching from my wooden board in the middle of the garden, I have not had a repeat of the problem. I concluded that the proximity of the metal had upset the compass at start-up. Perhaps you have a similar issue with metal proximity?
 
This Mavic Mini is my first "real " drone so I'm a noob and trying to figure this all out. The weather finally broke here so I have been able to fly it a few times. It's amazing. Only problem is that on the Fly app screen, bottom center where it show's what direction the drone is and which way it's facing, it is never right. I tried calibrating the compass several times and it still is off a lot. Anything I'm doing wrong?

You need to be more specific. Is the direction wrong relative to the north arrow, or is it wrong relative to the direction the controller is facing?
 
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Thanks. The first time was on my driveway so the metal in the concrete was probably the problem. The second time was in my yard, but i used a landing pad, the circle fold up kind with a metal ring. Could the metal ring be messing it up? Last night I calibrated the compass outside and didn't use the landing pad, just launched from a clear spot in the yard and the compass was spot on. I'll do some more testing with the pad when I get a chance but I think if that was a problem, I would have heard about it a bunch.
 
Sounds like metal messing with the compass. You can test by turning it on (but don't start the props) while holding away from any steel. If properly calibrated, the "radar" and map heading indicators should be the same and accurate to the actual heading. You can then see if the heading changes when placed on the ground. If it does then there is something there that affects the compass.

I have not updated my firmware or Go 4 for quite a while, but mine warns me of compass interference before even starting the motors.
 
I hope it isn’t the metal hoop causing the problem as I have one on my birthday list - however, I’m with you, if the hoops were an issue, I feel sure that it would have been reported by now.

Good luck resolving this.
 
Thanks. The first time was on my driveway so the metal in the concrete was probably the problem. The second time was in my yard, but i used a landing pad, the circle fold up kind with a metal ring. Could the metal ring be messing it up? Last night I calibrated the compass outside and didn't use the landing pad, just launched from a clear spot in the yard and the compass was spot on. I'll do some more testing with the pad when I get a chance but I think if that was a problem, I would have heard about it a bunch.

There's still no way to answer those questions until you clarify what I asked about in post #3.
 
There's still no way to answer those questions until you clarify what I asked about in post #3.
Sorry I wasn't clear. Not sure where the north arrow is, I haven't seen that on my screen. Where it shows what direction the drone is in relation to the controller was off and the arrow that shows which way the drone is facing was off too.
 
Sorry I wasn't clear. Not sure where the north arrow is, I haven't seen that on my screen. Where it shows what direction the drone is in relation to the controller was off and the arrow that shows which way the drone is facing was off too.

In that case the problem likely has nothing to do with the aircraft or its compass - it's the compass in your phone reading incorrectly - probably affected by the magnets in the RC sticks Hall Effect sensors.
 
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This Mavic Mini is my first "real " drone so I'm a noob and trying to figure this all out. The weather finally broke here so I have been able to fly it a few times. It's amazing. Only problem is that on the Fly app screen, bottom center where it show's what direction the drone is and which way it's facing, it is never right. I tried calibrating the compass several times and it still is off a lot. Anything I'm doing wrong?
I found that if you calibrate your phone compass while connected to the controller, it will work. I just did this on my last flight and it seemed to solve this issue. I’m using an iPhone 7. I’m not sure yet if it has corrected the issue going forward but we’ll see on the next flight
 
I found that if you calibrate your phone compass while connected to the controller, it will work.

Yes, I too ensure that I do this as these are the conditions in which the phone's compass will actually be used during a flight. However ......

probably affected by the magnets in the RC sticks Hall Effect sensors.

Does the process that Rex and I recommend obviate this potentially fundamental issue?
 
Yes, I too ensure that I do this as these are the conditions in which the phone's compass will actually be used during a flight. However ......

Does the process that Rex and I recommend obviate this potentially fundamental issue?

That or rotating the phone 180° in the controller mount so that the phone compass is further from the RC.
 
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