Hi all, ive never posted here before, SO firstly hello everyone

Ive recently ( like last night ) took delivery of a phantom 4, i upgraded from a phantom 3 standard, which had a return to home crash oops lol,

Anyway the p4 seems excellent and im 90% happy with it all except for a tilted horizon which is driving me mad after just 3 batterys worth of flights, I have calibrated the IMUS and the compass and auto calibrated the Gimbal???

I know it can be adjusted, but it seems ill adjust it, and then 20 ish seconds later it is adjusted too much, so i guess its trying to sort itself out but very slowly...

Any help on this wouod be great, i will not entertain sending back to DJI after a very bad experience with their suppose warranty..

Thanks in advance

Darren

Firstly welcome!, how bad is the horizon tilt? Is it all up to date with FW? May be worth posting a video to show us.
Some phantoms do it some don't, if it is bad most of the time they get sent back for another one.
If you don't want to send it back, post production and adjust gimbal roll!

Nigelbrinkmann Posted at 2017-4-19 12:38
Firstly welcome!, how bad is the horizon tilt? Is it all up to date with FW? May be worth posting a video to show us.
Some phantoms do it some don't, if it is bad most of the time they get sent back for another one.
If you don't want to send it back, post production and adjust gimbal roll!

Hi, thanks for the reply,

I dont think ive tested it enough to know how bad it is yet, it seems very intermittent one moment its fine then the next its not then you adjust the gimbal roll, and then it counters too much lol, very annoying on something which is so expensive..

Oh yeah all fimrawre is up to date, both aircraft, batterys and remote, ive just done a remote calibration, see if that helps.

Darren

dazza.uk Posted at 2017-4-19 13:21
Hi, thanks for the reply,

I dont think ive tested it enough to know how bad it is yet, it seems very intermittent one moment its fine then the next its not then you adjust the gimbal roll, and then it counters too much lol, very annoying on something which is so expensive..

Mine does that, and it annoyed me at first. Like you I kept trying to correct it manually. But what I've observed is that after rotating the P4 the horizon tilt gradually settles itself, so I've learned to wait a couple of seconds for it to 'settle' before taking a photo.

However I realise that doesn't work for video, but I don't do so much video

Welcome Darren!

Unfortunately, you are experiencing what a lot of us do. And not only with Phantom but Mavic as well.  

There are uncountable threads concerning the tilted horizon here and all over forums and so far, the issue hasn't be solved.
You will only hear from mods asking you to make all kinds of calibrations eventually asking you to send the drone in for repair.
  

I sent my P4P in three weeks ago regarding the tilted horizon.  

Before I received the repair ticket I was asked to provide proof of the issue.  

I sent 12 images, see two of those (Sample A+B) below. The reply was: "Thanks, it's really hard to tell."
That was very funny! I'm wondering which glasses the guy is wearing. Still I received the repair ticket.

Having read that turnaround time may take up to two months I got a P4P through Amazon.  

To approach possible problems step-by-step I took it up in the air without ANY calibration. Tilted horizon was obvious.

I then calibrated the compass – no change.  

Back home I did IMU, Gimbal and RC calibration successfully. See result below (sample C+D)
I'll send this drone back to Amazon. No need for DJI repair hassle.
  

Since DJI has never addressed this issue only conclusion for me is:  

They don't know how to solve it.

  

Thanks for all the replies guys, And Eric apart from the horizon, nice pics lol,

Yeah i think you are right about dji not knowing how to solve it and also about the guy wearing glasses lol, sometimes there support actually all the time there support are like robots reading from a script...

Looks like i will just have to live with it, the frustrating thing is my phantom 3 standard had perfect horizon all the time, to be honest other than 4k and obstacle avoidance, a pahntom 3 with antenna mods is just as good for video making as phantom 4 , kind of annoyed for splashing the cash, but there we are lol

darren

Hi Darren. Welcome on board - it's a real journey...

As already mentioned above, the tilted horizon is a common issue. I suspect because the IMU sensors aren't as efficient as DJI would like (no doubt it's a price-point decision for the build of their craft).

My understanding of how it's done (and happy to be corrected by anyone who actually knows):
IMU calibration on a flat surface sets the baseline for the craft, and the baseline (zero point) is what's later used to determine how much the craft is angling in flight and how fast it's going. When you then do a gimbal calibration, the craft sets the gimbal's baseline (it's zero point) also. Later in operation, when the craft's IMU sensor says it's, say, yawing -1 left, the gimbal level is compensated +1 to the right. In other words, the gimbal doesn't actually know what's level - that's determined and maintained artificially. So, if the IMU and Gimbal aren't correctly baselined on a perfectly flat surface at the start, the horizon level will never be right. That's why the moderators always say - do the IMU calibration on a flat surface first, then do the gimbal calibration. Mantra #1.

So why can't it keep it level in flight? I suspect this is due to the IMU sensor 'missing a beat', such as it didn't sense the correct extent of a movement to feed to the gimbal to sufficiently off-set for. It may require some time for the IMUs to determine they're off once the craft is level again, but I've found that I can sometimes force this by doing a stable 360 degree yaw and then leave it to hover for a few seconds. Or you can adjust the off-set via the RC controls, but that's only manually compensating using your visuals.

My P4P horizon is much better after the latest firmware update (last week) where some gimbal 'optimisation' was incorporated. The next P4 firmware (which is now late) should enjoy the same optimisation code. But still waiting on that...

Punchbuggy Posted at 2017-4-19 15:18
Hi Darren. Welcome on board - it's a real journey...

As already mentioned above, the tilted horizon is a common issue. I suspect because the IMU sensors aren't as efficient as DJI would like (no doubt it's a price-point decision for the build of their craft).

Thanks for the reply punchbuggy, it deffo seems extremely common, and seems that its something i need to live with, a few people now have said that a hard turn or 360 yaw or similar almost forces the gimbal to get ots act together, i guess i need to learn what works for my particular flight style, and this particular p4

Tilted horizon will not spoil a good video. It's more an OCD thing.

I am new to this forum, so I'd like to say hi to the community.  I have a refurbished PH 4; my issue is when I open th dij go app. it initially takes me to the flight screen, but then switches to the dji store and I"m not able to get back to the flight screen to calibrate the aircraft ...etc,.  However, I also have the PH 3 standard and learned how to fly it.
I got so frustrated with the dji go app., that I grabbed the PH 4 aircraft and flew it without a flight screen.  The aircraft is a joy to fly, I landed it, soared it to 400 feet, landed it again without a problem.  No issues what so ever.  

Any suggestions on how to get the dji flight screen to stay on?  The quad links with the remote other wise I wouldn't have been able to fly (duh obviously).  This thing has me bugging out.

Joe3906 Posted at 2017-4-22 13:51
I am new to this forum, so I'd like to say hi to the community.  I have a refurbished PH 4; my issue is when I open th dij go app. it initially takes me to the flight screen, but then switches to the dji store and I"m not able to get back to the flight screen to calibrate the aircraft ...etc,.  However, I also have the PH 3 standard and learned how to fly it.
I got so frustrated with the dji go app., that I grabbed the PH 4 aircraft and flew it without a flight screen.  The aircraft is a joy to fly, I landed it, soared it to 400 feet, landed it again without a problem.  No issues what so ever.  

Joe, you have a new problem unrelated to the OP subject. Make up a heading summarizing your problem and start a new thread, that way it will be seen by more members who could easily miss it tacked onto someone else's thread. And welcome, there is an incredible knowledge base here both from members and DJI, I am sure someone will be able to help.

Quamera Posted at 2017-4-22 14:47
Joe, you have a new problem unrelated to the OP subject. Make up a heading summarizing your problem and start a new thread, that way it will be seen by more members who could easily miss it tacked onto someone else's thread. And welcome, there is an incredible knowledge base here both from members and DJI, I am sure someone will be able to help.

I'm so Sorry.

Joe3906 Posted at 2017-4-22 15:30
I'm so Sorry.

No need to apologize Joe, I was just pointing out that you would have a much better chance of a response on your own thread. Alternatively you could search for a thread that covered a similar problem and post on it although if the thread you find is more than several months old it still may be better to start a fresh one.

I was very annoyed about the tilted horizon at first but I got used to it after a while. It usually corrects to a good enough level after 5 seconds or so when you stop turning. But I don't bother with it when I'm flying I simply cut out the first piece of a shot in editing. Yaw shots with the horizon clearly visible are still a problem though. The tilt is more noticable when you look at photos so you need to hold still for at least 10 seconds before you take it, or just adjust it with the buttons or in post. Hopefully a firmware will get the horizon good enough more consistently.