I am the very excited owner of a brand new Spark Fly More bundle.

One question that I can't find an answer to anywhere:

Thinking of x, y, and z space coordinates, is the strict up and down use of the left stick meant to only alter the Z coordinate of the craft while holding X and Y constant? Even moving the left stick left/right should just change the orientation of the craft and keep X and Y fixed.

I ask because if I send my Spark straight up and straight down, there's a significant amount of "drift" and I wasn't sure what this was -- is this the non-military inaccuracy of GPS? My propellor got a minor scratch (very minor) so could this be it? Or maybe a calibration issue?

It's probably about 10m of drift.

Thanks,

Alex

Uh 10m is way too much it should stay locked in position - but only if you are in Pos-Mode i.e. with a valid GPS fixI think up to a specific height it also uses the optical sensors to avoid drift but not sure about this.

Maybe you should do an IMU & compass calibration and test it again. Make sure you have a good fix and enough satelites - don't rush it into take off ;)

10 meter sounds all wrong, gps would never be out by that much, you could test this by setting RTH to 40 meter, then fly outside 20 meter, hit RTH it should ascend to 40meter fly directly over RTH homepoint and descend to that point, that will clear up your thoughts on gps. If that's not a problem and when using manually it's still the same then maybe a stick calibration could be needed.

Got it -- thanks. In all fairness, I sent it up 400 feet and then down 400 feet, and it was about 10m off on the "down" from the up. Perfect GPS coverage. So maybe it's a calibration issue OR (I should have included in my initial question) there's some service window to this...

Hi, sometimes you can unintentionally move the stick in two directions and you'll think its doing alot of drifting. I still struggle with this sometimes especially while recording. Try this; with your thumb and index fingers grab the base of the r/c sticks and move them left , right, up or down. This will give you precise movement of the sticks in one direction. You can go straight without going left or throttle up  without turing right. Hopefully this will help you eliminate that as source of drift.

Aerial Ant Posted at 2017-7-18 06:18
Hi, sometimes you can unintentionally move the stick in two directions and you'll think its doing alot of drifting. I still struggle with this sometimes especially while recording. Try this; with your thumb and index fingers grab the base of the r/c sticks and move them left , right, up or down. This will give you precise movement of the sticks in one direction. You can go straight without going left or throttle up  without turing right. Hopefully this will help you eliminate that as source of drift.

Thanks. Yeah, I'm sure I didn't touch the right stick, I was very careful to just use the left stick to adjust height and direction.

Is there a way to try to trouble-shoot this? What is the normal "range" of drift, especially with more significant (>300 feet) height? It can't be a GPS issue.

Alex

fansebcd771a Posted at 2017-7-18 13:21
Thanks. Yeah, I'm sure I didn't touch the right stick, I was very careful to just use the left stick to adjust height and direction.

Is there a way to try to trouble-shoot this? What is the normal "range" of drift, especially with more significant (>300 feet) height? It can't be a GPS issue.

If you just lean on sticks when fully up or down slightly if will throw AC off line. If you want to calibrate sticks, go to your app with RC turned on 3 dots in right hand corner click and down to Icon for RC click and calibrate should be there, it's quite tricky to get it right take your time to get it right.

Good luck.

I suppose you can play back your flight with the virtual sticks showing to verify for yourself that you didn't add any left or right stick drift manually.

gosh i hate using virtual joysticks.. hahaha..

Anyway maybe you should try calibrating the remote...

Byrd's Loft Posted at 2017-7-18 18:00
I suppose you can play back your flight with the virtual sticks showing to verify for yourself that you didn't add any left or right stick drift manually.

I just played back the flight with the virtual sticks and confirmed I didn't mess up.

This time drift was about 15 meters.

Is there any chance it's a propeller? One propellor suffered what I would call a "tweak" or scratch when it hit some leaves. It's incredibly minor so hard to imagine that's it. I can obviously change the propeller and do a bit of a time-variant A/B test...

I've calibrated everything so don't think that's it.

well to eliminate if its the propeller, try changing to one of the spare to test.. (make sure you use the right props)

Damage to the props will play a small part - pending the level of damage. 400 feet up will also add a wind drift factor seen as the Spark is a very small drone for that height. saying this, when you come back down to a more calm altitude the GPS should fix the drift and more or less land you within 1-2m of the home point. 15m is a tad much.