Some thoughts about problems reported

[xagoras]

I'm new to this wonderfull flying world. Never owned a drone before and the Mavic 2 Pro is my first experience with a flying machine. I've owned it for almost a month now and been flying almost daily still trying to figure out what I'm doing.

Reading the forums and watching videos has been very helpful and educating and tought me a lot of the Do's and Don'ts of flying a drone. I keep certain procedures before each and every flight, doublechecking things and keep in mind the drone's safety. Never had an issue with it.

I keep reading people's posts about the drone behaving strange in the air, refusing to land or take off, moving wildly, crashing, falling etc. It's very interesting to see how most are quick to blame the drone, but when the logs are analysed it turns out that in most cases a pilot error has occured, or a pre-flight check hasn't been made, or a calibration never took place etc.

My point here is that, although there surely is a small percentage of faulty machines that fall into warranty, I think that if people were a little bit more careful before and during their flights, most of these incidents would have never happened. This is a great hobby, and it's a shame to damage it's reputation be irresponsible behaviors that could lead to damage of property or people getting injured.

I'm by no means an expert on the matter, but sometimes a noobie can go through things that some experienced users don't, either out of over-confidence on their abilities or simply because they do them and consider them standard procedures.

So people, please do things right and your flight experience will get much better. Do the FW updates, do the calibrations, charge the batteries correctly, do the pre-flight checks and most of all fly in a safe manner for both your drone and the people around.

Sorry about the long text, but I had to get this out of my system. Happy flying, take care.

 

[Meta4]

when the logs are analysed it turns out that in most cases a pilot error has occured, or a pre-flight check hasn't been made, or a calibration never took place etc.

Not calibrating anything doesn't cause problems.
The drone doesn't need to have anything recalibrated before flying (except that it now requests it after 30 days - but even then, there's no real reason for it).
Frequent recalibration doesn't make anything any safer.

 

[xagoras]

So, it's advisable not to calibrate anything prior to flight? That's not what DJI says. Not everytime of course, but definitely before the first flight.

 

[Paul2660]

DJI also stated on their forum that to fix the problem a pilot was having with gimbal stablization, to fly with the clear gimbal guard on, (MP2). Of course you can't do that with the MP2 as it locks the gimbal and thus the gimbal will overheat, not to mention work correctly.

When you first start up your drone, its a very simple step to check your sensors, if both show normal, IMU and compass, I see no reason to recalibrate. If you see yellow or a error, sure recalibrate it only takes a second on the compass, with the IMU in the field that's not as easy unless you are working in a parking lot. Not to mention that DJI still has not fixed the routine in DJIGO4 for the IMU calibration process. You can get around it easy enough, but still that's something that should have been address.

To me the most important issues are:

Did you see any errors on the main system status screen (one that shows on start up and can be shown by hitting the bar next to DJI on the DJIGO4 main screen)
Did you get any error about magnetic interference on startup? If so move your drone.
Did a home point set
Does the map/compass rose on the bottom right and left of main screen agree with your coordinates. Especially the compass. If this is not correct don't launch.
Are you at 100% battery or close?

Each person has their own checklist of things to check before a flight, but having on and using it each time to me is very important.

Paul C

 

[xagoras]

Couldn't agree more with you mate. My point is that many of the problems reported could have been avoided, I think, if simple things had taken place before the flights. Especially when someone noticed abnormal behavior. It's basically like looking for trouble if you fly when you notice something like that.

 

[ac0j]

Couldn't agree more with you mate. My point is that many of the problems reported could have been avoided, I think, if simple things had taken place before the flights. Especially when someone noticed abnormal behavior. It's basically like looking for trouble if you fly when you notice something like that.

That is my feelings too. OFTEN we don’t get a lot of the story. Most of the time they are trying to get a free repair or replacement and seeing if anyone here buys the often edited story.

 

[DanMan32]

And then there are the subtle things most might not consider, such as VPS left on over water at what wouldn't initially think to be low altitude. I thought my M2Z lost its mind drifting slowly west and swirling around. A few days later with VPS discussions, it occurred to me VPS was tracking the waves.

 

[Meta4]

So, it's advisable not to calibrate anything prior to flight? That's not what DJI says. Not everytime of course, but definitely before the first flight.

DJI have suggested frequent compass calibration in some manuals and confused everyone.
They also have updated some newer manuals like the Phantom 4 pro and removed the completely incorrect information about needing to calibrate the compass when you change locations.
Your compass doesn't lose calibration and it doesn't need recalibration for new locations.
My working Phantom still hasn't had anything recalibrated in two years of professional use and lots of travel and it runs perfectly.

When you first start up your drone, its a very simple step to check your sensors, if both show normal, IMU and compass, I see no reason to recalibrate. If you see yellow or a error, sure recalibrate it only takes a second on the compass,

If you think there is an issue with the compass, recalibrating it is not the answer.
Instead of calling it a compass error, DJI should have called it a compass warning.
When your compass is warning of magnetic fields, the solution is to move away from those magnetic influences rather than recalibrating anything.

 

[SteveCA]

So, it's advisable not to calibrate anything prior to flight? That's not what DJI says. Not everytime of course, but definitely before the first flight.

nope. DJI does not suggest calibration unless the go app ask for it. I have over 700 flights on the original Mavic and my mavic 2 pro. one compass calibration total and that was in the Philipines 5500 miles from home.