Finally got a Mavic Pro after many months of wanting one! I noticed on the first flight that the horizon was badly tilted:


On the live chat I was told to try IMU, Compass and Gimball calibration. I tried all, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

I did notice that during gimbal calibration, it lines up perfectly, but then once calibration has ended it tilts again. I've uploaded a video of the gimbal calibration here (you can see at 51 seconds it tilts again, when calibration finishes).



Does this seem like a fault or is there something more I can try?

Dan,

There seems to be a lot of bad cams that were being installed on the Mavic's assembly line.
did you try to compensate it with the remote controller camera tilt or roll setting ?
I hope this fixes it for you.  

If the above procedure corrects the tilt, do this to check the cam for proper operation :
Hold the Mavic up by hand with it powered up and Yaw it to the left then to the right just a little bit , The cam should compensate by rolling ( tilt ) in the opposite direction of the yaw to keep the horizon level , if not I'm
afraid you will have to send it back ( RMA )

  

As mentioned above - do correct the tilt manually with the option in the app - I do have it set around 0.5 degree - without this it would be tilted - maybe you have a false factory setting there (somebody didn't click well) and that's why it is like that. That's the most likely reason and a most likely solution since it looks good during calibration.

One other note - it is important to have lots of light for the gimbal calibration and a nice horizontal line somewhere there. I've tried to calibrate in low lighting before and it simply wouldn't complete - due to lack of spatial orientation for the sensor. Do carry out calibration in good lighting but first check the above mentioned manual tilt.

Hope this helps :-)

rnrnrn Posted at 2017-4-1 04:42
As mentioned above - do correct the tilt manually with the option in the app - I do have it set around 0.5 degree - without this it would be tilted - maybe you have a false factory setting there (somebody didn't click well) and that's why it is like that. That's the most likely reason and a most likely solution since it looks good during calibration.

One other note - it is important to have lots of light for the gimbal calibration and a nice horizontal line somewhere there. I've tried to calibrate in low lighting before and it simply wouldn't complete - due to lack of spatial orientation for the sensor. Do carry out calibration in good lighting but first check the above mentioned manual tilt.

Yeah good lighting is very important -- when I first calibrated , it was in poor light but the calibration did complete with the cam setting it self to the left and down --- took a while to figure out that it was poor lighting ---- Thanks rnrnrn for bring that to attention

Thanks for the comments. I've tried IMU, Gimbal and Compass calibration again and also Gimbal calibration outside in bright light.

I had to set the roll to 2.0 to compensate for the tilt, but then when I started flying, it ended up tilted again!

I don't entirely understand the question about yawing my hand; it doesn't look like the gimbal is rolling, but I don't understand why it should? If I roll the Mavic, then the gimbal does roll the other way to compensate correctly (the picture remains perfectly as level as it was - which is wrong, but you can't see the rolling from the picture).

Is it a dud? If I need to send it back, am I going to end up with some refurb? And will my DJI Care Refresh be extended by the period I'm without drone?

I've sent an email through the DJI website about this with a link to this thread - is this the best/correct way to contact them or should I try something else during office hours?

I've noticed that turning hard definitely in sport mode will cause this in mine i fly mostly for fun and I'm not much of a photographer so I just use the tilt adjustment if flying. When I'm flying for fun I sometimes use the fpv setting and not follow this seems to help if you do want to stop and take a shot I switch back to follow and it's usually level

Found flying it the only way to get the gimbal adjust right. Look at what way it's tilted in the air, then on ground adjust the roll one. Restart and take it back up, do it again. A good imu calibration helps (level surface, cold, done before the internal fan on the ac kicks on). Kind of a dumb question, you in sports mode?

They all do this to some degree and more so flying in wind. I wish DJI would come clean about this and admit that everyone will at some point experience skewed horizon. Instead, they ask users to jump through hoops of IMU calibration, camera reset, gimbal calibration etc when none of these ever address the problem.

thehippoz Posted at 2017-4-2 10:26
Found flying it the only way to get the gimbal adjust right. Look at what way it's tilted in the air, then on ground adjust the roll one. Restart and take it back up, do it again. A good imu calibration helps (level surface, cold, done before the internal fan on the ac kicks on). Kind of a dumb question, you in sports mode?

I'm not in Sports mode (though the controller did come with it switched into sports mode out of the box!).

To make it level, I have to set the roll to 2.0 (which seems quite high), but then it doesn't seem to completely solve the issue while flying; it often falls out of line again.

I've tried IMU, Compass and Gimbal calibration many times though none seem to have helped (I haven't tried IMU calibration cold or without fans kicking in though).

DanTup Posted at 2017-4-2 11:03
I'm not in Sports mode (though the controller did come with it switched into sports mode out of the box!).

To make it level, I have to set the roll to 2.0 (which seems quite high), but then it doesn't seem to completely solve the issue while flying; it often falls out of line again.

Would do the IMU and make sure it's level, cold and done before the fan kicks on the ac. Then restart and calibrate the gimbal on the same surface.

Other than that, there was a guy named Sean Ozz on youtube that had the same issue with high tilt in p. Maybe faulty. Actually, reset to default with assistant 2 before the calibration. That will reset your compass to factory before doing the IMU and gimbal. Then give it a fly without another compass calibration.

thehippoz Posted at 2017-4-2 12:22
Would do the IMU and make sure it's level, cold and done before the fan kicks on the ac. Then restart and calibrate the gimbal on the same surface.

Other than that, there was a guy named Sean Ozz on youtube that had the same issue with high tilt in p. Maybe faulty. Actually, reset to default with assistant 2 before the calibration. That will reset your compass to factory before doing the IMU and gimbal. Then give it a fly without another compass calibration.

When you say cold; are you talking about putting it in the fridge, or just out of the sun?

I've been doing the IMU calibration indoors (where I can make a perfectly level surface) but there are radiators around - I presume this is ok because IMU is not affected by metal (since legs are folded), only compass calibration?

I had an email back from DJI today, they said they would repair it under DJI Care Refresh!

I pointed out the drone is brand new and defective on arrival and it should be covered under warranty. They said they'd pass the details on to the DOA/Warranty team and I'll hear back.

Not a good start; I hope this isn't a sign of things to come

DanTup Posted at 2017-4-3 09:17
I had an email back from DJI today, they said they would repair it under DJI Care Refresh!

I pointed out the drone is brand new and defective on arrival and it should be covered under warranty. They said they'd pass the details on to the DOA/Warranty team and I'll hear back.

I don't think you need to worry about that - it should be fine once you clarify with them. Some of the people at the service stations think that they should produce good budget results - so cost thrown at the customer - that's definitely not what DJI itself wants but they can't hire enough people in such a short order to handle all the stuff.

Doing IMU calibration cold makes sense because the heat will not influence the reading. You don't need to put it in the fridge just do it right after starting up the craft. Can you provide more footage of flight and maybe some footage of moving the drone at home inside to show the tilt you are referring to? I do mean after the manual correction of 2 degrees - having this set it would be good to do a short clip of how the craft acts when at home and when flying outside - could be helpful.

Cheers!

I don't think the IMU calibration is going to help; it was like this out of the box then the same after my IMU calibration (seems unlikely both out of factory and after my own calib we'd get same results?).

I wasn't recording yesterday when I noticed it went skewed again; but depending on when I hear back from DJI, I might try and record something more at the weekend.

I read elsewhere in the forum that DOA units are replaced with new units (not refurbs), so I hope/presume that's what'll happen here.. makes me feel a little better, though I'm worried return to China, then investigation, then shipping new one is going to result in a long time without my drone. I hope the DJI Care Refresh will be extended for that period, otherwise I'm not getting the year I paid for!

DanTup Posted at 2017-4-2 22:22
When you say cold; are you talking about putting it in the fridge, or just out of the sun?

I've been doing the IMU calibration indoors (where I can make a perfectly level surface) but there are radiators around - I presume this is ok because IMU is not affected by metal (since legs are folded), only compass calibration?

I actually put mine in a bag and in the fridge for half hour. Then had the rc and calibration screen ready and started up the ac. Started the cal asap. Finished before the ac fan kicked on.

It did help with the tilt. My tilt wasn't as bad as yours though.

Since it's brand new, I wouldn't want to potentially void the warranty putting it in the fridge, so I'll wait for another response from DJI. Hope they can sort this quickly

Tried live chat today, but was told that they can't give an idea of how long it'll be before I hear back because it's a different department! They also said they can't guaranteed that my DJI Care Refresh will be extended for any time I'm without a drone.

So I have no idea when I'll know what's happening, whether I can fly, or how long I'll actually be covered for while being able to fly my drone! Not the best start as a new DJI customer