Almost Flyaway?

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Only have a few flights with my P3A but kinda freaked a little yesterday. I was messing around in my back yard after flying earlier in the day at an open soccer field where all went well. In my back yard I was just playing a bit in the yard and decided to go up to see the height of some pine trees behind me. More of a reference for future. While above the trees the AC seemed to start to fly away. I will say that earlier in the morning I was getting some Compass errors which seem to be fairly common (least from what I have read). Anyway the drone goes out of site and also was seeing GPS errors on my phone as well. I enabled a RTH and thankfully it came back. I pulled the log and have it posted here.

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I'm seeing Yaw Errors in the log and a search of this on this forum didn't turn up much info. I'm going to do another IMU calibration and for sure another Compass cal when I go back out in a bit. Any thought or comments would be appreciated.
 
It looks like the compass needs to be calibrated, you last calibrated it in an area where there was magnetic interference, or your compass is faulty and needs to be replaced. Try calibrating your compass outside in an open area and see if that resolves the issue.
 
As RTH worked correctly, it shows that your compass and GPS worked correctly on its way back. Nothing needs to be replaced.

You seem to have a strong wifi interference in your backyard where you tried to fly to gauge the heights of the trees.


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Only have a few flights with my P3A but kinda freaked a little yesterday. I was messing around in my back yard after flying earlier in the day at an open soccer field where all went well. In my back yard I was just playing a bit in the yard and decided to go up to see the height of some pine trees behind me. More of a reference for future. While above the trees the AC seemed to start to fly away. I will say that earlier in the morning I was getting some Compass errors which seem to be fairly common (least from what I have read). Anyway the drone goes out of site and also was seeing GPS errors on my phone as well. I enabled a RTH and thankfully it came back. I pulled the log and have it posted here.

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I'm seeing Yaw Errors in the log and a search of this on this forum didn't turn up much info. I'm going to do another IMU calibration and for sure another Compass cal when I go back out in a bit. Any thought or comments would be appreciated.
You may be referring to the increase in compass errors that occur mid-flight. I've had a couple of these and have chosen to accept them as false positives. But, your incident is very different in two significant ways. The compass errors occurred both close to the ground and close to the launch site. This makes it a real possibility that the launch site is geomagnetically distorted (e.g., launching from a metal picnic table, steel pipes under ground, etc). A compass or IMU calibration won't help in this situation. The other difference is that the compass errors are correlated with heading, at least in the first part of the flight. The compass errors occur between -130 and -110 degrees. This is a indication that there could be a compass calibration issue. Did you calibrate at the launch site and are there ferrous metal objects nearby?
upload_2016-11-13_10-37-55.png


If you want to know more we'll need to look at the .DAT.

I always advise people that a compass error close to the launch site is serious and the flight should be terminated. And, do not, under any circumstances, initiate an RTH.
 
@w9nl , you might also try not using the 'Auto Takeoff' & 'Auto GoHome' feature on 3-4 of your flights. I have seen others run into the exact same issue as what you have going on. When they manually launch and land they noticed less compass messages.

Btw, doing a search on this issue would benefit you big time! Do not RTH when having a compass error otherwise you may never see your aircraft again, or find it twisted in the top of a tree. Use A-mode and either land or do you best to get it to you. Compass and GPS errors are to be taken seriously.
 
You may be referring to the increase in compass errors that occur mid-flight. I've had a couple of these and have chosen to accept them as false positives. But, your incident is very different in two significant ways. The compass errors occurred both close to the ground and close to the launch site. This makes it a real possibility that the launch site is geomagnetically distorted (e.g., launching from a metal picnic table, steel pipes under ground, etc). A compass or IMU calibration won't help in this situation. The other difference is that the compass errors are correlated with heading, at least in the first part of the flight. The compass errors occur between -130 and -110 degrees. This is a indication that there could be a compass calibration issue. Did you calibrate at the launch site and are there ferrous metal objects nearby?
View attachment 68662

If you want to know more we'll need to look at the .DAT.

I always advise people that a compass error close to the launch site is serious and the flight should be terminated. And, do not, under any circumstances, initiate an RTH.

I'm still fighting my way thru this and for sure need to learn and understand things a bit more. In short I'm still fighting with this issue as of yesterday. I did a compass cal in a different area yesterday and essentially had the same results. Read up on all this last evening and want to play a bit more and hopefully come back with some learnings. I was looking at a .DAT file last night and had a question on the DatCon program...how do you generate a .KML file? I can't seem to get the View It button to be active.
 
I'm still fighting my way thru this and for sure need to learn and understand things a bit more. In short I'm still fighting with this issue as of yesterday. I did a compass cal in a different area yesterday and essentially had the same results. Read up on all this last evening and want to play a bit more and hopefully come back with some learnings. I was looking at a .DAT file last night and had a question on the DatCon program...how do you generate a .KML file? I can't seem to get the View It button to be active.
Click the "Ground Track" button in the KML Panel before you press the Go Button.

You might want to try CsvView instead. It has it's own GeoViewer and has capabilities that the DatCon/Google Earth doesn't have. CsvView can be obtained by going here.
 
Click the "Ground Track" button in the KML Panel before you press the Go Button.

You might want to try CsvView instead. It has it's own GeoViewer and has capabilities that the DatCon/Google Earth doesn't have. CsvView can be obtained by going here.

Must have had a brain cramp. Tried it again and must not have selected the ground track..duh. I'll try CsvView as well.

Thanks!
 
Why not dropbox a copy of the .dat to BudWalker while you looking over the file yourself? Most likely you will have questions once you dig into it.
 

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