It seems almost every time I want to use my Mini 2 it wants me to calibrate the compass. I’m probably exaggerating for effect a bit, but it seems very often to me. How often are people finding they need to do this and is the need to do it brought on by anything I might be doing wrongly?
Also, whilst I haven’t made a lot of use of the drone yet (still quite new, crappy weather and lockdown!), I seem to regularly get GPS warnings when out in flight and the system tells me it will use Altitude mode (iirc - by the time I have brought it back I forget what the exact message says!). The message seems to be there for a few seconds, then goes away. It isn’t all the time/every flight, but it has popped up quite a few times, and considering I am in Oxford and in open space, I’m surprised by GPS warnings.
Do you guys have the same sorts of warnings happen regularly?
A few weeks ago I tried to launch from what I thought was a concrete wall. Nothing but calibration prompts, refused to calibrate. Walked a few yards away, calibrated, up & away. Must have been steel re-enforced wall.
My patio has steel reinforcements in the slab. I guess I will launch from the private road at the end of my driveway and see if the problems are reduced.
Download your flights to airdata then you can look back to see exactly what warning and when , it gives loads of flight data and it’s free and easy to use
I just flew my new M2M fo rthe first time this afternoon from my garden went up tp about 100 feet and around. came back and landed and when I went to take off again I had the compass calibration error.
Tried to recal a number of times at different points in the gargen and the calibration failed many times.
I also noted the the small indicator of the drone in the bottom sensor of the screen was flashing red and not working. When I tapped it it It said to calibrate the mobile device.
Not that I’ve noticed, only in the fact that the controller constantly beeps if there no connection, if this happens then just give the LED button a tap and the beeping should stop.
yea they do say every location to reccalibrate the compass etc to get the best from itt, and if where your taking off from has reinforcments in them then it can play havoc with gps etc as they interfere
The GPS data and Compass data are very closely linked. If your Compass is experiencing problems, i.e. the compass heading does not tally with the GPS heading, DJI’s algorithm will flag that the GPS positional data is incorrect and will display the catch all message of “Poor GPS”. If there is no correction within a set time the GPS hold feature is disabled and the drone reverts to ATTITUDE MODE (altitude hold and self levelling only).
When you calibrate your drone’s compass (especially for the first time) it should be done in an area free of any possible magnetic influences, such as concrete with internal metal supports or re-enforcing, high current carrying cables, large metal structures such as cars. I will often use a regular navigation compass and/or a Gauss meter to check the area is clean when calibrating a new build.
I don’t think DJI suggest this but for other flight control systems it is suggested that the compass calibration is started with the drone pointing North prior to performing the interpretive compass dance. I’ve adopted this approach for all my flight controllers including the ones I use from DJI.
If you use a sunshade with magnetic clasps, storing it alongside your drone can cause issues. This is why I will not use a smartphone case with a magnetic clasp as it always screws up the phones internal magnetometer.
To date I’ve had to recalibrate the compass once, and that was on a DJI Spark. Probable cause may have been because I’d left it in a case with a large sunshade for a 10inch tablet which had magnetic strips around its edges.
