P3P Compass

[dmagnus]

Quick question. I have a P3P and just installed the latest firmware, etc. When it is in the house or within 50' of my steel clad pole barn, I get the compass warning. I have to take it out in the field and then get away from my Polaris Ranger by about 50' in order to do a compass calibration. That's fine, the P3 seems to be MUCH more sensitive than my P2. I always used to calibrate my P2 right next door to the pole barn. Never have had a problem, though.
My question is this. I am going over to my sister in law's home this afternoon for some Independence Day fun. Their house is exactly 12 miles WSW of my house. Will I have to re-calibrate the P3's compass when I get over there? If I don't get the calibrate warning, will I be OK? Or should I just calibrate anyway?

 

[Drone Master]

Quick question. I have a P3P and just installed the latest firmware, etc. When it is in the house or within 50' of my steel clad pole barn, I get the compass warning. I have to take it out in the field and then get away from my Polaris Ranger by about 50' in order to do a compass calibration. That's fine, the P3 seems to be MUCH more sensitive than my P2. I always used to calibrate my P2 right next door to the pole barn. Never have had a problem, though.
My question is this. I am going over to my sister in law's home this afternoon for some Independence Day fun. Their house is exactly 12 miles WSW of my house. Will I have to re-calibrate the P3's compass when I get over there? If I don't get the calibrate warning, will I be OK? Or should I just calibrate anyway?

You should be fine. If you are only going that far. I calibrate my birds only when I am over 50 to 75 miles away. It only takes 15 seconds to do a calibration anyway. You can perform it if you feel it will give you piece of mind.

 

[alokbhargava]

Technically it's not needed to recalibrate your P3P at the new site but it's your choice. But if it's me, I will go for calibration as that gives me confidence that nothing has gone wrong during my travel.

 

[lonjsnyder]

Once you have a good calibration, do not recalibrate unless you travel 100s of miles or after a firmware update. I've seen so many UAV crashes across multiple UAV forums caused by a bad compass calibration. Calibrating before each flight carries its own risk.


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[dmagnus]

Thanks, guys. That's pretty much what I thought. I'm leaning toward not calibrating unless I get a warning. Of course it may be a moot point because I'm well within the MSP class B airspace and about 2-3 miles from the local airport, so the DJI software might not "let" me fly. (be interesting to see what it says)
I'm only going to be in their yard and less than 100' up so I'll probably be ok.

 

[dmagnus]

Just thought I'd update this with the results of Sunday's flying.
I flew for about an hour - 3 batteries worth until past the warning. I didn't re-calibrate the compass because I didn't need to. Never went much over 150' up and stayed in the 1 acre property. Took a total of 29 minutes of video (still trying to figure out how to get it up on YouTube so the relatives can see it. I think I'm going to have to break it up into a LOT of small clips to get decent upload times (I only have 1mbit up).
Anyway, even though I was well within the local airport's 5 mile radius - no warnings or anything in the Go App.
The P3P performed flawlessly, as did my drop release mechanism (Gimbal-Guard). I dropped some fireworks and dragged some others around. Unfortunately, I don't have any video of that. But I did get some great video of my Bro-In-Law's little show he put on for the grand nieces. Also, my first try at night flying - no problemo.
All in all, a great day with the Phantom.
Next project - deliver a beer to my neighbor.