Have to calibrate compass every flight

[melmartin]

Hi all. I'm a new (December) Mavic Pro pilot and I love it. Great piece of gear.

I'm in Arizona, and am lucky to have some empty patches of desert near my house where I can fly. Every flight the Go4 software says I need to calibrate the compass. It's not a lot of trouble, but should I really have to do that every flight?

There's nothing around me. Just sand, desert and plants.

Thanks in advance for any insights.

mel
Catalina, AZ

 

[radial]

That seems weird. What happens if you don't calibrate the compass? Me, I would experiment. Cautiously.

 

[Drone Master]

Hi all. I'm a new (December) Mavic Pro pilot and I love it. Great piece of gear.

I'm in Arizona, and am lucky to have some empty patches of desert near my house where I can fly. Every flight the Go4 software says I need to calibrate the compass. It's not a lot of trouble, but should I really have to do that every flight?

There's nothing around me. Just sand, desert and plants.

Thanks in advance for any insights.

mel
Catalina, AZ

Remove all watches and jewelry. Calibration should be made away from all possible metals. Calibration should be made away from your vehicle if near by.
Consider these factors. That info is FYI. It's well noted in the manual.
Have you covered all of these areas?

 

[msinger]

Every flight the Go4 software says I need to calibrate the compass.

What exactly do you see when it's telling you to calibrate the compass?

 

[melmartin]

I'm usually holding my remote with phone attached... and I do wear a watch... vehicle is a 100 yards away.... at least

 

[melmartin]

The software brings up the page with the sensors, and it says calibrate compass.. so I do..

 

[msinger]

Does the screen look like this?




Or like this?




If so, neither are prompting you to calibrate the compass.

 

[melmartin]

Yes, the bottom screen...

 

[msinger]

That's just giving you the option to calibrate the compass. It's not prompting you to do so.

 

[lightbg]

Yes, the bottom screen...

If you look at Mike's last screenshot you'll see the green gauges indicate all is well. The red box telling you to calibrate can be ignored. If the two sensor areas come up red, then you should do it. Mine always has calibrate highlighted, but when I go to the sensor page they're green, just like above.

Jake

 

[melmartin]

Ah... since it was the only thing that didn't just say normal I thought it was prompting me to calibrate. That's most helpful. Tomorrow I'll fly without doing the calibration.

Many thanks. Live and learn.

 

[melmartin]

Jake- that you for your input too. Will fly tomorrow and ignore it... i was being too diligent.

mel

 

[msinger]

If DJI GO wants you to calibrate the compass, you'll see a message in the status bar at the top of DJI GO (in the camera view). In most cases, such a message is prompting you to move your Mavic away from a nearby magnetic metal object (rather than to attempt to calibrate the compass).

 

[lightbg]

Jake- that you for your input too. Will fly tomorrow and ignore it... i was being too diligent.

mel

Don't feel bad - it caught me by surprise the first few times. I make a habit of checking the sensor page in my preflight checklist.
You can never be too diligent.

Happy flying tomorrow.

Jake

 

[lolo780]

How do sensor numbers normally look? They usually should be well below 100 if all is well.

 

[melmartin]

Thanks again to everyone. Looking at playback of my last few flights I am also seeing 'front obstacle avoidance sensor not available'. I only see this one on last few flights using RTH. It's never appeared otherwise. Not sure what is going on here, and if it is a real problem or not. Here in Arizona we have very bright skies, perhaps on the last few flights sensors were seeing sun or bright skies, but no such warning in normal flight. Keeping an eye on this one too... I see there is a procedure to calibrate those sensors so if this persists I will try it. I could not find anyone reporting that exact error message.. but others got sensors 'not working' messages.

 

[lolo780]

Definitely go through the vision sensor calibration routine in Assistant. Make sure your usb cable is long enough, and hold the aircraft as smooth and steady as possible.

The sensors do get confused especially into the sun so turn them off if there's nothing to hit.