I purchased an FC40 last week for my husband's birthday. He worked with it for a few days trying to get it set up, and he and I worked on it much of the afternoon today trying to get it set up.
First, the controller wouldn't sync (flashing yellow lights) - we figured that out. Then the controller was in the wrong mode (although we'd done the firmware upgrade and loaded up the settings/profile provided on the DJI site) - we figured that out. Now we're stuck at the compass calibration step. We must have run through that aspect of setup 20 or more times trying to figure out why it's flashing red/yellow, why flipping the S1 switch between 'gps' and ATTI wouldn't put it into the calibration mode, whether the advanced compass calibration process in the software was actually doing anything, etc. We got the 'temperature too high' error in the app no matter how hot the thing actually was or how long it had or hadn't been on, and still haven't figured that out. We're not sure if the unit is picking up any GPS satellites. Sporadically, the transmitter is losing contact (yellow flashes) and needs to be re-sync'd up, a process that the manual tells us should only be needed if we're changing controllers. We have yet to get it to a point where it can be flown and not a lot of confidence that we'll ever get there.
We called DJI support, and after some troubleshooting and magnet-waving, the guy said we either have a bad compass module, or are in an area where there is too much magnetic interference to fly a quadrocopter, and to try another location. If that fails, he says we should buy a new compass module and see if that works. We drove a few miles away to try to rule out the 'magnetic interference' possibility, with no change in our results.
I'm well within the Amazon return period. If you were me, would you buy a new compass module and hope that fixes the various issues we're having, or would you just return it? I have no idea how 'normal' this setup process is, maybe this is typical?
First, the controller wouldn't sync (flashing yellow lights) - we figured that out. Then the controller was in the wrong mode (although we'd done the firmware upgrade and loaded up the settings/profile provided on the DJI site) - we figured that out. Now we're stuck at the compass calibration step. We must have run through that aspect of setup 20 or more times trying to figure out why it's flashing red/yellow, why flipping the S1 switch between 'gps' and ATTI wouldn't put it into the calibration mode, whether the advanced compass calibration process in the software was actually doing anything, etc. We got the 'temperature too high' error in the app no matter how hot the thing actually was or how long it had or hadn't been on, and still haven't figured that out. We're not sure if the unit is picking up any GPS satellites. Sporadically, the transmitter is losing contact (yellow flashes) and needs to be re-sync'd up, a process that the manual tells us should only be needed if we're changing controllers. We have yet to get it to a point where it can be flown and not a lot of confidence that we'll ever get there.
We called DJI support, and after some troubleshooting and magnet-waving, the guy said we either have a bad compass module, or are in an area where there is too much magnetic interference to fly a quadrocopter, and to try another location. If that fails, he says we should buy a new compass module and see if that works. We drove a few miles away to try to rule out the 'magnetic interference' possibility, with no change in our results.
I'm well within the Amazon return period. If you were me, would you buy a new compass module and hope that fixes the various issues we're having, or would you just return it? I have no idea how 'normal' this setup process is, maybe this is typical?