Hi,

Tonight I went for a quick flight over my small town, after about 30 seconds in the air I noticed on my iphone screen that it began to roll about 30-40' degrees, and start flying all over the place like it had a mind of it's own. The red "compass error" started flashing and the little voice lady started saying things but I can't remember as I was panicking. It took me about 5 minutes to get it back to my backyard and it was extremely difficult to fly, sometimes it just started flying backwards away from me.

Anyways, the compass was caliberated about 3 flights ago and I've never flown it elsewhere since. There are no major steel objects anywhere around me or within the town.

Any ideas? am I supposed to caliberate it every single flight even when I don't change locations at all?

I just don't want it to happen again, it was honestly out of control and could hurt someone if it happened at the wrong time.

Thanks forum!

if that happens again, change into atti mode and fly back.manually

They say always calibrate compass before every flight when you start the drone up again or change batteries. It takes 10s max and saves you from a potential $1K loss. Its worth it to spend the 10s and the 1% battery capacity idling.

Also like the guy said above, if it acts stupid, go to A mode. The other modes, P and intelligent mode has a lot of autonomous functions that override human input from the controller. Turning to A mode means you shut everything off pretty much and control this phantom by its basics. But flying A mode requires skill and experience.

As my savior Jerry instructed me always calibrate before flight.  I have had one fly-away with my P2+v.3 since then I calibrate after every battery change. Better safe than sorry.  Always do the calibration dance. Have fun prairieboy.

quaddron3 Posted at 2016-3-28 14:16
They say always calibrate compass before every flight when you start the drone up again or change ba ...

If "they" say that, they don't know what they are talking about.
rather than relying on hearsay from those that don't know, learn what compass calibration is about and fly safer.
http://www.phantompilots.com/thr ... plete-primer.32829/

Kripdish Posted at 2016-3-28 14:17
As my savior Jerry instructed me always calibrate before flight.  I have had one fly-away with my P2 ...

"Better safe than sorry.  Always do the calibration dance."

And too often people that follow that line get into trouble because they are so keen to calibrate every time that they calibrate unnecessarily in a bad location and screw up their compass.
Better to know what you're doing and fly safe as a result of that rather than superstitious rituals.

You take a chance on getting a false calibration.  Take the effort to get a good clean calibration and then leave it alone.  Same for IMU.  Unless you to a lot of long distance traveling and flying far from your calibration point, leave it alone --- UNTIL you upgrade firmware again.  Always recalibrate after upgrades.  I seriously doubt that not calibrating had anything do to with your problem flight.  What's really causing these problems that people are having (I feel) just haven't been discovered yet.

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-3-27 23:41
If "they" say that, they don't know what they are talking about.
rather than relying on hearsay fr ...

"They" means the DJI manual you DS.

They tell you right in the manual to calibrate before every flight.

quaddron3 Posted at 2016-3-29 11:30
"They" means the DJI manual you DS.

They tell you right in the manual to calibrate before every fl ...

And the manual contradicts itself on another page.
Regardless, experimentation by many experienced users has shown that there is absolutely no need to calibrate the compass every flight and peopel that do it run the risk of causing problems due to bad calibration.

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-3-28 20:45
And the manual contradicts itself on another page.
Regardless, experimentation by many experienced ...

lol?

Are you a politician? You're like a flip flopper arguing both sides. One minute you say one thing and another its something else, but no matter what you've got the best perspective and you're always right.

The manual tells you to calibrate before every flight. So that was the "They" you were being a smartass over for which I have now informed you.

As for your suggestion that you might get a bad calibration by doing it more? lol? How do you know your first calibration was good? How do you know your subsequent calibrations are bad? Ask yourself, if you have a method of determining the first calibration is good, why can't you use the procedure on subsequent calibrations? What if your first calibration was never good? What if your method of validating your calibration was not inaccurate.

These are all issues you deal with in metrology. Logic 101 brah.

quaddron3 Posted at 2016-3-29 11:58
lol?

Are you a politician? You're like a flip flopper arguing both sides. One minute you say one t ...

"How do you know your first calibration was good? How do you know your subsequent calibrations are bad? Ask yourself, if you have a method of determining the first calibration is good, why can't you use the procedure on subsequent calibrations? What if your first calibration was never good? What if your method of validating your calibration was not inaccurate. "

OK genius ... its very simple.
If your Phantom flies straight rather than curving and it doesn't do a slow spiral when hovering, your calibration is good.
And if it's good ... it will stay good.
Compass calibration isn't something that fades or needs to be changed all the time.

Here's an example of the kind of trouble you can get when you follow the completely unnecessary imperative to calibrate-every-time like some superstitious ritual

You have to go into the app before every takeoff anyway to set the failsafe height, so why not check the compass mod value while you're in there? lf you're close to metal or interference you should see a change on the value. lf you need a calibration (or close to needing one) you'll see that too. Anytime my values start dancing around l figure the phantom is going to get drifty so l do a cal.
edited for spelling

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-3-28 21:18
"How do you know your first calibration was good? How do you know your subsequent calibrations are ...

Ok tough guy. You seem like a narcissistic megalomaniac.

DJI manual tells you to do something a certain way about a product that they engineered and manufactured. Yet you're calling them a moron and that you know better.

You are also miraculously able to take no blur images traveling max horizontal speed of 35mph with a 2s shutter camera setting, even though its not possible for everyone else. Cool.

Looks like you're always right professor.

BTW you're not making a point with the video. It talks about knowing where you calibrate and not to do it around metal objects. Duh. It says right there in the manual. Don't do something you're not supposed to. What an insight! Its like you showing a video of a drone losing signal behind a building and trying to use that to argue the drone doesn't have a long distance telemetry like it was advertised. Well no shyt. Doing something you're not supposed to. Of course it wouldn't work the way it ought to. So calibrating on a metal surface? Duh don't do it. Next?

quaddron3 Posted at 2016-3-29 13:39
Ok tough guy. You seem like a narcissistic megalomaniac.

DJI manual tells you to do something a ce ...

As for the Phantom manual and compass calibration .. it's obvious that it's poorly written, contradictory and extremely light on detail.
If you don't want to take advantage of the efforts of dozens of experienced flyers to work out what really matters and how to use the Phantom .. that's fine.

And you seem like someone that doesn't read what's posted and doesn't understand what's posted.
But you don't let that stop you with the bombastic opinions and posturing.
You have no idea at all.

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-3-28 22:46
As for the Phantom manual and compass calibration .. it's obvious that it's poorly written, contra ...

That you professor.

Hey why don't you drone on about all your successes and experiences in flying drones?

quaddron3 Posted at 2016-3-28 20:52
That you professor.

Hey why don't you drone on about all your successes and experiences in flying ...

Alright, alright, gents, cool down!!!

quaddron3 Posted at 2016-3-28 20:52
That you professor.

Hey why don't you drone on about all your successes and experiences in flying ...

Usually I'm very gentle and polite person, but I must express my sour opinion that indeed all this compass calibration issue is a big BS. By now we have 2 extremely different schools of compass calibrating procedure: official DJI recommended approach and seasoned pilots approach. Moreover, DJI is messing with us revealing different procedure in Go app 2.7.1: sideways bird rotating in place of traditional nose down!!!
However, I tend to agree with the logic of calibrating once within surely non-ferrous environment and check the mod readings before every flight rather than do the ritual dance every time in uncertain environment.