I purchased a Spark last week and so far its been brilliant!! had the occasional gps low and signal low errors but after reading online these seem normal with using the controller attached to my phone via wifi and not OTG,
Last night i went out to take a few photos of a tower we have in our marina, whist in the air the craft displayed YAW Error and proceeded to fly away, fortunately i was still in control and i managed to bring it back closer to me, the larger of the red sections is when it flew off. what would be the cause of this?
once landed i moved to another location for pictures and the software instructed me to calibrate compass, which i did. seemed fine after this.

Log is here
and ive attatched the photo as im happy with how it came out despite the errors.

All I can say is this YAW Error is far too common. Solution is to send in to service unfortunately.

I have no idea what may have caused the error. But be very careful of the location where yo calibrate the compass. It has to be in the clear, away from steel objects. That would include steel reinforced concrete and fences. The middle of a lawn is probably best.

Hi. I am sorry that you are having issues with the Yaw function of your DJI Spark. May I know when did this issue started and if the Drone had previously crashed or if it had a hard landing before?

Yaw Error is mostly caused when there are different readings between Compass and IMU. You maybe had interefence on the Ground and when taking off the Interference was reduced, this can cause abnormal readings.

Sometimes Sportsmode's Quick / Sharp Turnings causes this Error, but I think you where in Normal Mode right ?

This has not happened before, the drone is just over a week old had no crashes or knocks, always landed with holding the throttle stick down.
The issue has not happened today so hopefully it was just a bad area/moment.

I'm not sure what level of support I'm entitled to as this drone was purchased on a trip to USA now I'm in the UK.

Dajones Posted at 2018-7-14 10:45
This has not happened before, the drone is just over a week old had no crashes or knocks, always landed with holding the throttle stick down.
The issue has not happened today so hopefully it was just a bad area/moment.

Glad to know that, I would recommend flying your aircraft in an open area and avoid hazardous environment to prevent an accident. Please re-calibrate the IMU and compass especially if you're about to fly to a different location.

Dajones Posted at 2018-7-14 10:45
This has not happened before, the drone is just over a week old had no crashes or knocks, always landed with holding the throttle stick down.
The issue has not happened today so hopefully it was just a bad area/moment.

Dajones,

No, this was not “just a bad area/moment”.
I have seen tens of cases like yours. As a matter of fact, you did answer your own question of what happened by admitting that software instructed you to calibrate compass when you moved to a different location. Your case is all about uncalibrated compass.

Vast majority (not all – but vast majority) of compass/yaw errors followed by dropping to ATTI are caused by poorly calibrated compass and/or poorly calibrated IMU. As DMX_NT suggested in post 5, yaw errors are caused by different reading between compass and IMU. If Spark does not detect clear compass errors but readings differ, it will throw yaw error. However, if compass and/or IMU are badly calibrated and Spark gests confused, it has propensity to throw all kinds of errors in sequence – compass, yaw, speed, weak GPS etc. This does not necessarily mean that everything is bad, it just means that Spark is confused. Usually, following such confusion and to avoid toilet bowl effect or start flying in wrong direction, Spark drops to ATTI. This is correct behaviour.

Magnetometer (compass) can get un-calibrated by variety of causes. The most obvious is travelling long distances from the last geo-position where you calibrated it. Three-dimensional properties of geo-magnetic field may differ from location to location throwing magnetometer calibrated in other location off. But there are many other causes. Perhaps you had some sources of electro-magnetic interference in your car which could un-calibrate you compass. Maybe you stored Spark in some location where it was subject to some forces which had detrimental effect on its calibration? There are many scientific articles you can google which explain magnetometers in detail. Even without any interference, magnetometer may lose its calibration over time. As a matter of fact, DJI does recommend calibrating compass if you did not use Spark for over 30 days or if you move more than 50km from the location you calibrated it last (this recommendation is not in Spark manual but is in Mavic Air manual – very similar if not same magnetometer technology. Besides, DJI Tony just confirmed it in his post above).

In addition, first thing to do after you experience any yaw or compass errors during flight is to calibrate both compass and IMU. It does not matter if DJI GO app prompts or does not prompt you to do it. Compass/yaw errors are clera sign of trouble. DJI GO app is buggy and DJI replaced many a drone lost because of this exact problem and pilots not being aware of it becasue everything showed normal before flight. Use your head and knowledge – do not trust 100% what software says.

However, in your case, software was correct since it prompted you to calibrate compass.

One more thing – do calibrate IMU as well. Just additional insurance policy.

For everybody reading this. I will not repeat compass calibration procedure - it has been posted, videoed and described many times. What has not been described and is missing from most instructions is the fact that you should do it slowly. Turn your Spark very slowly on both axis. Never rush. You may want to turn it twice (720 degrees – not only 360). Magnetometer reads three-dimensional geo-magnetic fields – allow it to do it properly.

Dajones – I am confident your Spark is just fine. At least for now :-)

Mirek

Great photo of Swansea!