Hi folks, some background...I did my first flight indoors at my office (with the propeller guards on) a few weeks back and all was really good. Launched off a conference table and flew all over the office. A week later I successfully flew my first outdoor flights (without propeller guard of course) at my desert house. Flew quite a bit and really enjoyed it. This past weekend back home took her over to a buddies house to show his son and flew indoors (again with the guards back on). Disaster. Mini takes off and immediately upon leaving the floor veers off in whatever direction like it has a mind of its own. Never launched straight up the 1.2 meters it is supposed to do. Also couldn't or wouldn't hold altitude. She would continually try to land as I fought to keep her in the air while drifting all over the place. Completely erratic flight. Any ideas? Now I did do both compass and IMU calibrations at my desert house which is 150 miles from home. I did not do them back at home but I think its not necessary for just doing indoor flight? One other thing I thought about was the floor was maybe too dark for the sensors so I tried her again later the same day at my home over a white bedspread. Same erratic results. I'm really stumped. Any insights are appreciated. Thank you.
Mini erratic flight...please offer insights
- Thread starter rockgarden
- Start date
does sound like a compass issue ,you should find somewhere away from metal and do a compass calibration then try it again outside first ,and if you do then decide to calibrate the IMU make sure that the surface you do it on is perfectly level side to side and front to back
OK thank you for advice...I also noticed that when I did the IMU calibration it took me several times to get it to complete. I'm not sure why but the calibration wouold go to 95% and then just hang there. It never showed me the steps until I tried it for like the 4th or 5th time. Is that a firmware glitch?
it does take some time to get right, and really its not something that needs doing on a regular basis and there is a delay as it gets close to the end as it assimilates all the data from the various parts of the system
Gothca...so I'll focus on the compass but I will attempt the IMU as well just to be safe. Thank you. I will report findings over the weekend. Safe 4th to all.
itsneedtokno
I'm chillin, appreciate it though.
Sounds like a classic Yaw error, as OMM pointed out.
You probably took off from a site with high magnetic interference.
Did you check MiniMap orientation?
You probably took off from a site with high magnetic interference.
Did you check MiniMap orientation?
itsneedtokno
I'm chillin, appreciate it though.
I did not check orientation...I'll take a look at the information you posted...thank you.
Always check orientation before taking off, it’s the first indication of a problem. Just get in the habit of doing it every flight. Only takes a second.
Anytime you relocate more the about 10-20 miles, recalibrate the compass. Again, it only takes a few seconds. Why take a chance.
itsneedtokno
I'm chillin, appreciate it though.
Not even an hour ago (catching sunrise) I checked my Minimap and saw my drone was off by about 25 degrees.
Yes, it probably would have corrected in the air, but I refuse to risk it... Just waited for more satellites, and it worked itself out. Maybe the sats had nothing to do with it, but after about 20 seconds it was correct.
FYI The number of sats wouldn't have fixed the compass. GPS only gives positional info and that's why most drones have a magnetic based compass to get heading info.
You can get GPS based heading info by having 2 synchronized GPS receivers set a distance apart from each other (typically at least 1.5m) but most drones are too small to use this technique.
Does the fact that I was flying indoors without any satellite connections and or GPS have any bearing on why my mini flew erratically? I would think that indoors the only positioning device the mini would have would be the sensors on the bottom. Or am I incorrect in the Compass still works indoors? Sorry I’m completely new to this whole thing so maybe asking simple questions but want to understand. Thank you.
The mini can fly fine without a GPS signal, though this is more intended for indoor flight. It'll still use the compass indoors, as well as the IMU (motion sensor). In your 1st post you mentioned flying over a white bedspread. One of the components of the vision sensors on the bottom works a bit like an optical mouse - it has a camera that picks out movement in what it sees. To do that it needs some contrasting detail to detect and the white bedspread may not have provided that. I don't think that was the real cause of your problems though. As others have said, it seems like a compass/IMU calibration problem. I've seen similar behaviour, which was fixed by a compass recal.
itsneedtokno
I'm chillin, appreciate it though.
If you took off from inside, without a calibrated compass, flying in ATTI mode... when the GPS locked, the compass would do a "self-audit" and being that the site is full of magnetic interference, go nuts...
If you could force ATTI mode, that may have helped
Agreed… The fact remains that I traveled almost 150 miles back from my Desert house to home and I did not perform a Compass or IMU calibration. It sounds like that is the problem so I will make sure I do it this weekend and then test the mini and report the results back here. Thank you to all and standby for results over the weekend.
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