Compass

Tim5168 · May 1, 2016

Phantom 3

alokbhargava · May 1, 2016

What's your question?

mikesmiley · May 1, 2016

Tim5168 · May 1, 2016

At the time of the crash my compass went all red. Should that be covered by the warranty

Tim5168 · May 1, 2016

I have the flight log on dji go but not sure how to upload it onto here

Meta4 · May 1, 2016

Tim5168 said:
I have the flight log on dji go but not sure how to upload it onto here

Go to https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
Follow the instructions to upload your flight record.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides
A few details would help too.

NathanRaines · May 2, 2016

Compass errors happen. I usually bring it to a higher altitude to eliminate what's causing it. And if I can't I manual land. You can't honestly think dji would take responsibility on somthing that can be effected by the area you choose to fly in... Now it's a crazy software, firmware, or hardware issue. That's diffrent.

FantomFlier · May 2, 2016

Tim5168 said:
Phantom 3

Seven.

Tim5168 · May 4, 2016

We fly in that area all the time with no problems. There is no power lines or anything like that around.

YCampCub · May 4, 2016

Radio frequency can come and go anywhere anytime had a 4 prop military plane fly bye and my screen went red no signal brought it home put it back in the air and everything was fine.

Tim5168 · May 4, 2016

Ya I probably just lost out. They'll say it's my fault for not getting it back. I tried getting it back but all it would do is 360 circles. I did manage to make it back 150ft-200ft before it crashed. It happened in about 25 seconds. First time it ever happened. It was only 3 month's old

ianwood · May 5, 2016

RF does not cause compass errors. If you are getting a compass error, you are either flying in the wrong place or your compass needs attention (e.g. calibration).

DronerLee · May 5, 2016

I have a question for a P3 Pro that I swapped out for some camera gear this week. My question is do you have to do the compass calibration counterclockwise turn each time before you fly?

alokbhargava · May 5, 2016

DronerLee said:
I have a question for a P3 Pro that I swapped out for some camera gear this week. My question is do you have to do the compass calibration counterclockwise turn each time before you fly?

Compass calibration is really not needed overtime at the same place unless you get a message to do so. If you think you had taken your aircraft through magnetic materials/ channels, you should check calibration again.

I usually do calibration at site always but thats me.

DronerLee · May 5, 2016

Thanks! I live in the Phoenix area and don't plan on doing much traveling outside of hear with it for the time being. I will be checking this out at a construction field site that went belly-up not far from home. This P3 is quite different from my Q500 4K. A lot quicker and getting used to the controls and using a tablet on the RC are my main concerns.

Bigs · May 5, 2016

I had compass and IMU errors on my second flight... (all at once)

It was not a great experience and I was able to land it safely. It took me 3 tries to get the compass calibrated and the IMU one try. What caused it, probably the cell tower about 500 feet away. My father in law who was flying his P3P in the same area had no issues. Haven't had an issue since.

kenjancef · May 5, 2016

As a new P3P owner, I assume the calibration is the same "DJI Dance" as for a P2? I have had my P2 for almost a year, and only calibrated the compass once, but then again the places I fly are only within about a 30 mile radius...

Meta4 · May 5, 2016

Bigs said:
I had compass and IMU errors on my second flight... (all at once)
It was not a great experience and I was able to land it safely. It took me 3 tries to get the compass calibrated and the IMU one try. What caused it, probably the cell tower about 500 feet away.

Cell towers get blamed for lots of things that they aren't responsible for at all.
At 500 feet there is no way a cell tower could create a compass error.
The real cause was probably only a few feet away.
That you had 3 attempts to calibrate your compass sounds a lot like the compass error was caused by putting the Phantom close to steel like a car, structural steel, buried pipes or (most common) reinforced concrete.
Your compass was fine but it was telling you that it had detected a distorted magnetic field.
If you ever have trouble calibrating the compass, the correct action is to move away to a magnetically clean area.

Bigs · May 5, 2016

Meta4 said:
Cell towers get blamed for lots of things that they aren't responsible for at all.
At 500 feet there is no way a cell tower could create a compass error.
The real cause was probably only a few feet away.
That you had 3 attempts to calibrate your compass sounds a lot like the compass error was caused by putting the Phantom close to steel like a car, structural steel, buried pipes or (most common) reinforced concrete.
Your compass was fine but it was telling you that it had detected a distorted magnetic field.
If you ever have trouble calibrating the compass, the correct action is to move away to a magnetically clean area.

Yeah man, I get ya on all that... So the reason I used the word "probably", not blaming it 100% as I have no proof of it.

All that crapped out around 120ft up...

The closest building was about 300+ feet away. Car 50+ feet away, I had nothing metallic on me and the RC was with the car (when calibrating of course). No concrete close by (except the building), buried pipes, maybe, I can't see underground.

Trust me, I've been reading on DJI Phantoms for 5 months prior to purchasing, watched all the vids etc. I suspected the tower as there wasn't anything other than that in my mind that made sense, but buried pipes could have been there without my knowledge., good catch!