I've had my Mavic for a few weeks now and have flown several hours with it so far. For the most part, it is basically flyable, but the issues make it difficult to truly enjoy it and a little dangerous IMO. Maybe some of the issues are normal or opperator error, but I'm just not sure. When I got it, I updated the firmware to 01.04.000, did the calibration on everything. Compass, IMU, gimbal. I've gotten in the habbit of calibrating the compass almost every flight because it seems to help a little.
The first issue I noticed was with the gimbal. Whenever I fly sideways, especially if there is any yaw, the horizon starts to drift out of level. Maybe a red herring, but it seems to be worse when sliding East/West. Once it has a case of the leans, it is like the whole world is tilted about 5-10 degrees. When I yaw 90 either direction, the horizon is level but high or low, but at 180, it leans the opposite way. Sometimes if I hover or fly straight for a while, it corrects itself, other times it doesn't. I've done the gimbal calibration several times with no change. It also seems to have an occassional minor jitter in the vertical axis. Not enough to notice in the monitor, but when I get home and pull the video, it is enough to spoil a nice smooth pan.
The second issue I noticed was with the camera. I usually record in 2K 30, +1,0,0. The video gets a glitch/scramble on the edge. An example can be seen in this video at 0:05 on the right side. It's a minor glitch, but it happens a lot. Way more than what I would expect from this level of equipment. I wonder if maybe the glitch and the vertical jitter mentioned above are the same thing.
The third issue is when braking. Whenever I center the sticks and the drone brakes, it comes almost to a stop and then buttonhooks about 6-10 feet to one side or the other. If I get back on the stick to correct it, I get to almost half deflection just to hold it in place. Then it toilet bowls around for a few seconds before stabilizing. The issue can be observed in the above video around 0:07
The app. Ah the app. I started with my Google Pixel 2 on 4.1.18. Took off, and got 5 feet up and it went black/locked up/crashed and would not reconnect. Grabbed my Google Nexus(2012) tablet and it wouldn't run it. Glitchy green screen. So I tried the wifes Fire 7HD tablet and sideloaded the app. It runs, but is veeeeeerrrrrryyyyy slow. I would have used my work iPhone 7, but my Mavic came without the lightning cable. I contacted DJI about this but haven't heard anything new since receiving a case number (CAS-1297442-C7D5P1) a month ago. 4.1.20 and 4.1.22 won't run on the Fire tablet so I downgraded to 4.1.14 and got it running ok, and the Pixel 2 seems to be more stable on the recent versions of Go4 as long as I use the bottom USB port instead of the side micro USB, but it still has at least one time every flight that the app locks up/goes black/force closes.
And now for the controller issues. The latency is atrocious, and variable. My son's $50 drone is more responsive and predictable than this thing. I don't expect race quad performance, but come on. I've learned to work with it for the most part by flying gently, but sport mode is pretty usless except in very open areas and in mostly straight lines. Yaw commands with the lag just turn into a tail chase. Sometimes the lag is really bad, and other times it is fine, which results in under/over controlling at times.
The last thing is more of a dissapointment rather than an issue...I think. The advertized range is something like 3+ miles, but I start to have controller dropout happening at just over .5 miles still LOS. I have a frozen lake that I fly at that is just over 1 mile long. I usually start to get severe latency and control dropout at about .4 miles. The best I've been able to get was .7 miles. The video feed is still stable, only slightly degraded, but control is marginal. With the stick held in one direction, the aircraft travels in short bursts whenever it gets a signal. Other times, it seems to continue on several seconds after controls have been neutralized. Plugging all of my flights into AirData, Most of my "Rudder Response Time" is around .2-.3 seconds and max out as much as 7 seconds. Combine that with a video latency of .2 seconds and the response time starts creeping up over 1/2 second. Not good when the aircraft can cover 30' in that amount of time. By the time a correction signal gets to it, 45'+ has been covered.
Overall, it's been a great tool, and I've taken some amazing pictures and videos and had a lot of fun flying it, it just has the potential to be so much more if it was a little more polished. Maybe I'm expecting a bit much from it. I know it's not a race quad, and some of these issues might be a result of inexperience or bad settings, but I hope it's not all me. It would be frustrating to have to deal with all of these issues forever.
Why are you calibrating everything and why are you calibrating the compass every flight you're not supposed to do that only if the app asks you to wear your values are not in the green you could be introducing bad calibrations into the aircraft believe it or not
So when you did calibrate the IMU did you do it on a level surface when you calibrated the compass was there any metal on you watches anything??? where you standing on concrete that had rebar in it? You cannot be around any metal
Most put up with the odd, minor glitch that may pop up now and again but overall, this does unfortunately sound like a real lemon - I've returned Mavic's in the past for far less issues than these.
$gambino$ Posted at 2018-1-14 10:47
So when you did calibrate the IMU did you do it on a level surface when you calibrated the compass was there any metal on you watches anything??? where you standing on concrete that had rebar in it? You cannot be around any metal
I don't understand what the issue is with calibrating the compass or IMU at any time. I calibrate often. If it is a bad calibration won't the drone/software let you know? Don't pilots in small planes calibrate their compass very often (xplane 11 simmer here).
If calibrating the compass or IMU actually introduces problems then I suggest it is a bug DJI should address.
Sir, I'm so sorry to read your post, and this must have been frustrating for you. I'd suggest to send the aircraft in for a fully diagnosis: https://www.dji.com/support Regarding the SPR issue, I've forwarded to the designated team to check the exact status and escalate the progress. They will take care of it and keep follow up. Hope this can be figured out soon.
Kevin_d Posted at 2018-1-14 12:02
I don't understand what the issue is with calibrating the compass or IMU at any time. I calibrate often. If it is a bad calibration won't the drone/software let you know? Don't pilots in small planes calibrate their compass very often (xplane 11 simmer here).
If calibrating the compass or IMU actually introduces problems then I suggest it is a bug DJI should address.
With real aircraft, the compass is calibrated at installation. If new radios or other equipment are installed, they should be checked. The compass has a card under it with corrected numbers on it. ie For 90, steer 88, and so on around the compass.
The reason I did all of the calibrations was because it wasn't working as it was. Several times I have tried to fly and the flight path wouldn't match up with the direction I wanted it to. For example, pushing straight up on the stick results in a crabbed flight as much as 30 degrees off heading. Usually a quick compass calibration gets it back closer to flying straight. Also the horizon is often out of level, so i do a gimbal calibration.
Thank you DJI Susan. I hope we can get this fixed and back in business soon.
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