Having a hard time with your compass calibration?

[Dgardner007]

I should have posted this week's ago, but here it is. When I first got my Mavic back in November 2017....I'm ready to fly ,so I thought...., compass calibration problems ??
After several attempts the RC kept displaying strong magnetic interference....WTH?
I'm in a field for Christ sake....well to my surprise it was my smart watch magnetic clasp
that hindering the RC and the AC compass when i picked it up.

I guess the Mavic can serve as a metal detector as well if need be...Just thought i would share.

Keep'em Flyin

 

[waylander]

Ha Ha.... good one Dgardner, a couple of years ago I also had problems in a field, the ground was very uneven and sloping so I arranged my backpack as a take off platform,
I got a couple of "Strong magnetic interference" warnings, and compass error messages, yes you guessed it, backpack was full of flight batteries, and a spare iPad...!

Keep'em rotor side up..

Waylander

 

[Njoro]

Believe it or not, on my second flight with my brand new Mavic and in a field the compass went off. I spent a good five minutes trying to calibrate, I gave up and walked back to the car which was some 10Mt away, As I sat down in the car I realised that my jacket has numarus metal zips; I thought “no way these zips could” I took my jacket off and “ yes no compass error was gone” I flew one battery and then experimented and sure enough with the jacket on the Mavic threw a compass error. I don’t fly with that jacket now.

 

[Bernie707]

I guess I've been lucky. I've never had a compass error in my dozen or so flights. I used to calibrate before each flight but now I don't unless I see an error before taking off.

 

[MichiganMavic]

Most driveways have rebar in them and a lot of times will give Compass Errors when calibrating, or when takeoff/landing.

 

[Bernie707]

I've always calibrated over grass or asphalt holding the mavic at least waist high. If you calibrate over concrete with rebar what is the height above the concrete where any rebar wouldn't affect the compass calibration? And if you don't calibrate and have no compass error taking off from concrete and go straight up 30 feet (assuming GPS lock) would you likely be okay? Two questions.

 

[msinger]

If you calibrate over concrete with rebar what is the height above the concrete where any rebar wouldn't affect the compass calibration?

You should be able to calibrate it when the Mavic is 4+ feet away from the rebar. If it's too close, the calibration will fail after you complete the second step.

if you don't calibrate and have no compass error taking off from concrete and go straight up 30 feet (assuming GPS lock) would you likely be okay?

No. Never take off when the Mavic is close to a magnetic metal object.

If you must take off from concrete, it would be safer to hold your Mavic in the air and take off from your hand.

 

[SwedeDroner]

I failed calibrating today. And gave up. Now I think that maybe that very very "light" magnet that sits on the side of the iPad could have interfered?

 

[msinger]

I think that maybe that very very "light" magnet that sits on the side of the iPad could have interfered?

There are magnets in iPads. You'd have to have your iPad very close to your Mavic to cause a problem though (like within a foot of it). Set all of your gear on the ground, take a few steps away, and then calibrate the compass.

 

[mnoutdoors]

I fly from a aluminum patio table when at home, it works perfect. Glass top sometimes also.

 

[Airbeaver]

Breathing some life into this old thread... Decided to try a flight with the mini using only the map and compass to navigate.

Set the mini down on the driveway, booted everything up and got a compass calibration warning. I tried and tried to get it to calibrated and it just would not take and kept failing. Finally, after about the 8th attempt it worked.

Everything looked good on my screen, the imu and compass showed calibrated and my RTH height was right where I wanted it to be. The direction arrow of the drone however was not pointing the right direction but I did not think much of it as this seems to be the norm until take off / a quick hover and then it always orientates itself.

I got the “Home point has been updated “ message and then I manually took off to about 4’ height to do my preflight control checks. Well, before I could check anything the mini banked quite hard to the left with no input from me.

I stayed calm and was able to counter steer my now out of control mini with the sole intention to land it, as quickly and carefully as possible.

I fought it for about 8 - 10 seconds and was luckily able to keep it from crashing and then it sort of just chilled out and I was able to land it safely.

I rebooted everything and there was no more problems. The flight went on and was a success.

It didnt even occur to me ( Until searching and reading this thread ) that it was almost certainly caused by the rebar in my driveway?

 

[waylander]

Hi Airbeaver

Glad you sorted it out, you answered your own question in the end.
However to reinforce your point, I have even had the problem you described in a field, and on taking a careful look around, found a man hole cover for some kind of electrical or telecoms cable duct, so I could only conclude that I was attempting to take off directly above the route of the cable, moved over 10 feet and took off without a problem.

Have fun
Waylander