Hi guys, just wanna list down a series of issues that I've encountered (real ones) and also those posted in other posts for admin/ DJI/ everyone's reference of the issues Spark is facing, and possibly some solutions. Took me awhile to decide to spend 10-15minutes to write this post, hope it helps everyone.

1. Height limit bug despite height limit turned off (experienced it myself)
This bug seems to happen everytime when I recalibrate the compass even successfully without interference or metal around me. I noticed twice I recalibrated compass, Spark would fly to approx 3-4 meters and trigger maximum altitude warning for no reason. It doesn't even reach the minimum 5 meter ceiling height restriction.

Solution: A post I just read http://forum.dji.com/thread-104222-1-1.html suggests don't recalibrate compass unless needed.  

If you happen to have recalibrated and encounter this issue, shut off your Sparks, turn on, recalibrate again, rinse and repeat if it happens again. It'll eventually be able to fly properly pass the limit with the limit restriction turned off. After that don't recalibrate compass unless really needed or prompted to (despite the advise to always calibrate compass before flying).


2. Sparks going crazy and flying off (experienced it myself)
Noticed that both times before my Sparks go crazy flying off randomly (once it flew backwards in sports mode, by itself, without it being in sports mode), it usually starts with it constantly swaying to 1 side (I read from another post, whom was from india and he bought the Sparks in Singapore just like I did), before it goes crazy and u lose control over it. Both times I started the flight by recalibrating the compass too...

Solution: If your Sparks start swaying to 1 side, even after it took off awhile and should've stablized, land immediately and restart entire Spark and maybe try recalibrating. It'll help. There seems to be interference and somehow seems to have locked into Sparks and will make it go crazy after you continue to fly it. Also don't recalibrating compass if possible before start of flight too (despite the advise to always calibrate compass before flying).


3. Battery dropping in 1 second from 30% to 11% and in another 3 second to 6% and forcese Spark to land (experienced it myself)
Was flying the other day with Sparks, had a battery warning at 30% when it landed from a flight, but because I wasn't flying far + I was flying it beside me for fun (in a park without interference) so I decided to take off again. Glanced up to see my drone up in air, looked down again in split second, red warning came up and showed battery at 11% and was drone forced itself to land. Drone was about... 3 or 4 meters away from me, I couldn't even bring it back right next to me before battery dropped to 6% (i think about 3 seconds time) and it hovered ready to land. Lucky I wasn't flying over water...

Solution: No obvious solution yet but don't even fly at 30~40% battery to be safe....


4. Drone dropping out of sky due to battery going to 0%? (yet to experienced it myself)
Reports of several posts that the drone suddenly run out of battery or from whatsoever reason and dropping out of the sky...

Solution:  no solution yet other then... maybe that batch of drone/ battery is faulty.


I've read/ watched in youtube that certain batches of product (mavic) came with problem, which might be possibily due to DJI's heavy backorder and rushed out production causing the mavics to have issues.

I think this might be the same case for Sparks, as both the singapore bought drone had issues going crazy flying away by itself and some people encountering the shut off problem. No idea if sending the drone back to DJI will help nor not sure of any better solutions. Hope these observations from being able to survive my Sparks thru the crashes and learning from it help u guys.

Oh forgot this

5. Sparks raising up to 30m height and RTH despite RTH at 30m was turned off
Encountered this too... Sparks forced itself to fly up 30m to return to home, even when I had it turned off in app....

Solution:  prolly a software bug, I cancelled when I see if lifting up to 30m before flying back. The home point was set about 5 meters away and I wanted to test the RTH @ current altitude function but it failed.

Had two Sparks now go suddenly head off at maximum warp. Firs time it hit a tree so didn't see what the screen said. That one was a write off. Now with the second one I was executing a RTH at 30m it wa hovering above home when it just took off, flew about 1km before I regained control and managed to manually pilot it home. This time I noticed there was a warning about Compass noise disengaging GPS. I mean how stupid is that if GPS is still good at least just stay where it is. Really? All of mine were bought from Banggood so DJI refuses to honor the warranty in Australia!

First your number 1 sounds more like lack of gps in this case your aircraft will not be able to fly above 5 metres 16ft this is a failsafe with spark, bad compass will not restrict your aircraft to height limit.

Your number 2 sounds like bad compass and aircraft going into Atti mode, this may well be a result of bad compass calibration, if a compass is calibrated correctly in the right environment there is no need to recalibrate unless prompted and even then you should first move to another location and restart aircraft before calibration.

Number 3 battery loosing power there can be many reasons for this , always have low battery RTH set properly.

Number 4 Spark battery should not go to 0 without first going to critical battery and begin the process of landing, if it goes to 0% without going into failsafe critical battery there is something wrong with your spark.

Number 5 spark should not go into RTH if it's not set in the app, maybe you disabled it without aircraft being turned on, you should always check your RTH parameters before you start flying.

EngineerEric Posted at 2017-9-16 02:31
Had two Sparks now go suddenly head off at maximum warp. Firs time it hit a tree so didn't see what the screen said. That one was a write off. Now with the second one I was executing a RTH at 30m it wa hovering above home when it just took off, flew about 1km before I regained control and managed to manually pilot it home. This time I noticed there was a warning about Compass noise disengaging GPS. I mean how stupid is that if GPS is still good at least just stay where it is. Really? All of mine were bought from Banggood so DJI refuses to honor the warranty in Australia!

There are reasons why when you have bad compass that your spark has to ditch gps below might explain. Recovering your spark from 1km is a feat in its self good job.

Why would a compass error disable GPS?
Orientation (compass data) and position (GPS data) are different but related.
When the Spark is moving and getting position information from the GPS that tells the Spark that it is travelling in a different direction from what it's getting from compass data, The Spark programming can't work with the data conflict.
The solution is to drop data from one source and since the Spark can't fly without a compass but can without GPS, it's the GPS data that gets dropped.

There have been some compass problems with Sparks lately or your issue may have been related to something you did.
I would be interested to see your flight log and some information where you took off from and environment you where flying in.

How do I download the flight log? Or is it too late as I have tried it again since. The crazy thing is it just went, turned tail and went. That is a terrible feeling when $500 worth of kit just flys off!

EngineerEric Posted at 2017-9-17 04:27
How do I download the flight log? Or is it too late as I have tried it again since. The crazy thing is it just went, turned tail and went. That is a terrible feeling when $500 worth of kit just flys off!

You can upload log to link below, just click on link and follow instructions come back here and post link.

http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

You should also sync your flight log to dji cloud in your app and start a case.

Ok so I have the data but none of the dates and time match is it UTC?

EngineerEric Posted at 2017-9-18 03:28
Ok so I have the data but none of the dates and time match is it UTC?

As far as I know it is.

Magius Posted at 2017-7-30 07:49
Oh forgot this

5. Sparks raising up to 30m height and RTH despite RTH at 30m was turned off

Since you say you were at 5 meters away from the Home Point and you cancelled it as soon as you saw it start rising, my assumption is that your elevation was below 2.5 meters when you initiated the RTH.  With RTH at Current Altitude enabled and the Spark's current altitude below 2.5 meters, it will raise to 2.5 meters before returning home.  If your altitude is 2.5 meters or higher, it will just come home at its current altitude.

My guess is that if you had just let it complete its actions, it would have went up to 2.5 meters and then came back to the home point as documented.

I just released a tutorial video on the Spark's RTH features.  If interested, check it out:

For your #3, I would like to see the flight logs for this flight.  As others mentioned, if you can upload to the PH site, that would be fantastic.  We can all learn from your experience.

For your #4 , this seems like it is happening FAR less since the most recent firmware update from 21 AUG.  For the ones that I've personally seen since the 21 AUG update, they mostly look like they are largely influenced by decisions the pilot made that led up to the low battery situations.  I certainly don't pretend to have read about everybody's issues, so I'm sure there are cases that are different than the ones I've read.

Kloo Gee Posted at 2017-9-18 03:53
Since you say you were at 5 meters away from the Home Point and you cancelled it as soon as you saw it start rising, my assumption is that your elevation was below 2.5 meters when you initiated the RTH.  With RTH at Current Altitude enabled and the Spark's current altitude below 2.5 meters, it will raise to 2.5 meters before returning home.  If your altitude is 2.5 meters or higher, it will just come home at its current altitude.

My guess is that if you had just let it complete its actions, it would have went up to 2.5 meters and then came back to the home point as documented.

Really very interesting video! Thanks for making this, Spark RTH is much clearer now!!

Kloo Gee Posted at 2017-9-18 03:53
Since you say you were at 5 meters away from the Home Point and you cancelled it as soon as you saw it start rising, my assumption is that your elevation was below 2.5 meters when you initiated the RTH.  With RTH at Current Altitude enabled and the Spark's current altitude below 2.5 meters, it will raise to 2.5 meters before returning home.  If your altitude is 2.5 meters or higher, it will just come home at its current altitude.

My guess is that if you had just let it complete its actions, it would have went up to 2.5 meters and then came back to the home point as documented.

Yet another great video.  This one definitely explains the RTH function really well.  Thanks again.

JMR58 Posted at 2017-9-18 05:00
Really very interesting video! Thanks for making this, Spark RTH is much clearer now!!

Glad it helped!  Thanks for the feedback!  I just posted a separate thread to the Spark forum with the link to the video for those that may not venture into this particular thread.