Mavic 3 Extremely Unstable When Sticks Applied

[jhuffman]

Hello, newbie to the forum but 3 year Mavic Air 2 Pilot. Just bought a Mavic 3 used and experiencing a crazy flight problem. First though, the drone appears in excellent condition with very little use. 2 of the batteries have never been charged. 1 has only been charged twice. The drone appears to have been flown only a few times but the last flight was some time ago. Before flight I calibrated the IMU and Compass since it was shipped to me and it hasn't been flown for quite some time, and I also updated the firmware on both the drone and the controller (RC-N1). I bound the drone to my DJI account prior to flight as well.
The problem is that when I am hovering the drone is stable and steady, but as soon as I apply a stick command in any direction it behaves very erratically. For instance when I pull the left stick down the drone will begin to descend but it will jerk backward several feet as well. This is without any right stick. Same with other directions - forward causes erratic side to side and even up movement. It is almost like the controller is bad. I have another controller that I can test tomorrow and maybe that will solve the problem. I downloaded the logs from the two flights but they don't seem to help me much since I never could get it more than a few feet away. I normally hand launch and land but I was not at all comfortable landing in my hand with the drone behaving this way. I noticed no difference when changing from Normal Mode to Cine Mode. I didn't manually disable the vision sensors.

First Flight: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
Second Flight: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

The drone does have DJI Care so presumably I could send it in without problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!!

 

[Cafguy]

I am a very new -kinda- drone builder I have built a few dji drones from parts I do not yet own a Mavic 3 but your problem sounds like an I.M.U. problem Try a recalibration? remember im not a pro but if recalibration doesn't work I would consider sending to D.J.I.

 

[slup]

According to the logs it seems that you flew in bad lightening, I would try to fly in day light where the VPS sensors would work properly & see if that makes any difference.

 

[GadgetGuy]

According to the logs it seems that you flew in bad lightening, I would try to fly in day light where the VPS sensors would work properly & see if that makes any difference.

I suspect you meant "bad lighting" rather than "bad lightening/lightning."

 

[Starz]

Based on the picture from the log, I would try moving away from that rear deck area for a different launch area.
Also, there is a section visible in the app that would indicate if there is/was a problem with the IMU and or compass. Was that checked prior to calibration?

 

[Lasidora]

Also try turning obstacle avoidance to OFF or STOP and repeat the test in good light conditions and report back.

 

[jhuffman]

I am a very new -kinda- drone builder I have built a few dji drones from parts I do not yet own a Mavic 3 but your problem sounds like an I.M.U. problem Try a recalibration? remember im not a pro but if recalibration doesn't work I would consider sending to D.J.I.

Thanks! I did recalibrate IMU - once before first flight and then once after.

 

[jhuffman]

According to the logs it seems that you flew in bad lightening, I would try to fly in day light where the VPS sensors would work properly & see if that makes any difference.

I'll try again today. It was not really bad lighting - but did see that it thought it was bad lighting. My Mavic Air2 has no problems any lighting so I didn't think late in the day could have much to do with it. Unless of course there is something else wrong and it thinks the lighting is bad. But I'll try today with a different controller around noon and see what happens.

 

[jhuffman]

Based on the picture from the log, I would try moving away from that rear deck area for a different launch area.
Also, there is a section visible in the app that would indicate if there is/was a problem with the IMU and or compass. Was that checked prior to calibration?

I'll try it in a completely different location today. That area where I was testing is just where I fly from when I am at home and it has never been problematic with the MA2. I may be assuming that these drones are more similar than they actually are. There was no indication in the app that there was a problem with the IMU.

 

[jhuffman]

Also try turning obstacle avoidance to OFF or STOP and repeat the test in good light conditions and report back.

I will try this today with new controller, noon, and I'll try turning off obstacle avoidance. Interesting though is that I do have it configure to show the "radar" on the map and I wasn't seeing that show up during the flights. And I will definitely report back, I really appreciate all the tips and suggestions!

 

[mobilehomer]

Make sure you have GPS lock before doing any maneuvers. The app will tell you that the homepoint has been updated and the satellite icon will be white.

 

[jhuffman]

Hello, newbie to the forum but 3 year Mavic Air 2 Pilot. Just bought a Mavic 3 used and experiencing a crazy flight problem. First though, the drone appears in excellent condition with very little use. 2 of the batteries have never been charged. 1 has only been charged twice. The drone appears to have been flown only a few times but the last flight was some time ago. Before flight I calibrated the IMU and Compass since it was shipped to me and it hasn't been flown for quite some time, and I also updated the firmware on both the drone and the controller (RC-N1). I bound the drone to my DJI account prior to flight as well.
The problem is that when I am hovering the drone is stable and steady, but as soon as I apply a stick command in any direction it behaves very erratically. For instance when I pull the left stick down the drone will begin to descend but it will jerk backward several feet as well. This is without any right stick. Same with other directions - forward causes erratic side to side and even up movement. It is almost like the controller is bad. I have another controller that I can test tomorrow and maybe that will solve the problem. I downloaded the logs from the two flights but they don't seem to help me much since I never could get it more than a few feet away. I normally hand launch and land but I was not at all comfortable landing in my hand with the drone behaving this way. I noticed no difference when changing from Normal Mode to Cine Mode. I didn't manually disable the vision sensors.

First Flight: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
Second Flight: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

The drone does have DJI Care so presumably I could send it in without problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!!

Update: I took the drone out today in a clear area and launched - same problem. So, I landed the drone and turned of obstacle avoidance completely. Re-launched and flew great. Then I hovered about 5' and reenabled obstacle avoidance and the drone worked great. I then landed, powered down drone and controller and exited the Fly app. Started everything back up and no problem. Obstacle avoidance was still on and it launched and flew fine. So maybe it was a hiccup? I'm still not super comfy though, I'd hate to be mid flight at 200' over water or a few hundred feet away and have it do this. Called DJI support and they didn't have any real solution other than to reinstall the firmware using the DJI Assistant 2 app which I will try tonight.

Thanks again for all of the suggestions! I was definitely weary of flying it again because it was so erratic!

 

[TonyPHX]

Maybe you could share some video of this issue. I found the m3 to have a very squirrelly feel compared to other drones.

 

[jhuffman]

Maybe you could share some video of this issue. I found the m3 to have a very squirrelly feel compared to other drones.

I wish that I did - but the problem is no longer present. It is now quite stable, basically very similar to the MA2. There is some fine tuning that could be done otherwise she flies perfect. It was obviously related to the sensors and possibly the firmware update which I originally did through the fly app. I have since refreshed the firmware using the DJI assistant app. After numerous tests I've had no failure.

 

[TonyPHX]

I wish that I did - but the problem is no longer present. It is now quite stable, basically very similar to the MA2. There is some fine tuning that could be done otherwise she flies perfect. It was obviously related to the sensors and possibly the firmware update which I originally did through the fly app. I have since refreshed the firmware using the DJI assistant app. After numerous tests I've had no failure.

THAT is great news. I lived with the odd feeling M3 for quite some time until firmware made it feel a lot more like what I was used to flying. DJI launched this one as a real bummer that turned into a nice bird. Now it just needs a SDK.

 

[3rdof5]

Just my 2 cents and this is info I learned just yesterday. It is recommended to calibrate the remote (sticks and scroll wheels) after a FW update. I did not do this and I believe this was what was causing my remote compass calibration to fail. You mentioned you updated the FW on both the remote and the aircraft. Try recalibrating your remote.