Compass calibration

[Razorback1]

Im confused about calibrating, mostly when to do it.I hear some people saying dont mess with it and some say you should recalibrate your compass at every new flight location. 2nd part of my question is I have a friend that bought a mavic pro when you take off and face the drone directly at you his locator pointer in the bottom left hand corner is facing about 40 degrees to the right of him, shouldnt it be pointing directly at him

 

[Razorback1]

Im confused about calibrating, mostly when to do it.I hear some people saying dont mess with it and some say you should recalibrate your compass at every new flight location. 2nd part of my question is I have a friend that bought a mavic pro when you take off and face the drone directly at you his locator pointer in the bottom left hand corner is facing about 40 degrees to the right of him, shouldnt it be pointing directly at him

Or should the arrow always point the direction of the mavic?

 

[tevek]

I only ever do a calibration when prompted and even so, I check my take off area for any obvious signs of inteference (reinforced concrete, electrical cabling etc). I've only done one calibration in the last twelve months and I've flown hundreds of klms from home. The forum is littered with problems doing otherwise.
The red icon points in the direction of travel, if it is not displaying correctly, you may need to check the compass calibration on the device you are using.

 

[sar104]

Im confused about calibrating, mostly when to do it.I hear some people saying dont mess with it and some say you should recalibrate your compass at every new flight location. 2nd part of my question is I have a friend that bought a mavic pro when you take off and face the drone directly at you his locator pointer in the bottom left hand corner is facing about 40 degrees to the right of him, shouldnt it be pointing directly at him

As mentioned above, the arrow points in the direction that the aircraft is facing. For that to point at the RC location shown on the map requires two things to be correct - the aircraft compass heading and the mobile device GPS location of the RC. If the aircraft compass were off by 40° it would either not fly at all or it would only fly in ATTI mode. It's much more likely that the mobile device GPS location is off by a few meters.

A simple, and better, test of the aircraft compass is to set the aircraft facing north (or on any known bearing) and then see if that is the direction in which the arrow points on the map.

 

[Razorback1]

I only ever do a calibration when prompted and even so, I check my take off area for any obvious signs of inteference (reinforced concrete, electrical cabling etc). I've only done one calibration in the last twelve months and I've flown hundreds of klms from home. The forum is littered with problems doing otherwise.
The red icon points in the direction of travel, if it is not displaying correctly, you may need to check the compass calibration on the device you are using.

The device being used is an iphone 7 plus. Are you referring to calibrating the compass on the iphone? The drone flew fine. The problem was noticed when bringing it back home. We lined up the red arrow and the blue line toward the home icon on the compass. As the drone got closer, we realized that it wasnt exactly following the same path and was going a slightly different direction. Made the adjustment and landed. There was a powerline about 30 yards away. Could this have caused some interference? Will try again tomorrow.

 

[sar104]

The device being used is an iphone 7 plus. Are you referring to calibrating the compass on the iphone? The drone flew fine. The problem was noticed when bringing it back home. We lined up the red arrow and the blue line toward the home icon on the compass. As the drone got closer, we realized that it wasnt exactly following the same path and was going a slightly different direction. Made the adjustment and landed. There was a powerline about 30 yards away. Could this have caused some interference? Will try again tomorrow.

No - the iPhone compass plays no part in the process - I mean the aircraft compass. In terms of the flight behavior, are you sure that wasn't just a cross wind causing the heading and the track to be different?

 

[Meta4]

The device being used is an iphone 7 plus. Are you referring to calibrating the compass on the iphone? The drone flew fine. The problem was noticed when bringing it back home. We lined up the red arrow and the blue line toward the home icon on the compass. As the drone got closer, we realized that it wasnt exactly following the same path and was going a slightly different direction. Made the adjustment and landed. There was a powerline about 30 yards away. Could this have caused some interference? Will try again tomorrow.

Your phone's compass requires calibration for the map/radar display red arrow to show the same way as the Phantom is pointing.
The phone compass determines how accurately the red arrow displays in the app.
Google will find how to calibrate the iPhone compass.

For the Phantom, your (current version) manual doesn't tell you to recalibrate after updates, or when you fly at new locations.
Ignore people that don't know what they are talking about - there are a lot of myths and superstitions about drone compasses.
If you have a good compass calibration (your Phantom flies straight and doesn't slowly spiral when you hover), just leave it alone.

 

[Razorback1]

Thanks everybody for your quick replies

 

[Razorback1]

No - the iPhone compass plays no part in the process - I mean the aircraft compass. In terms of the flight behavior, are you sure that wasn't just a cross wind causing the heading and the track to be different?

Sure there was no crosswind, Im going to restart it in the morning with those tips you gave me above, thanks for your help

 

[sar104]

Your phone's compass requires calibration for the map/radar display red arrow to show the same way as the Phantom is pointing.
The phone compass determines how accurately the red arrow displays in the app.
Google will find how to calibrate the iPhone compass.

For the Phantom, your (current version) manual doesn't tell you to recalibrate after updates, or when you fly at new locations.
Ignore people that don't know what they are talking about - there are a lot of myths and superstitions about drone compasses.
If you have a good compass calibration (your Phantom flies straight and doesn't slowly spiral when you hover), just leave it alone.

"Your phone's compass requires calibration for the map/radar display red arrow to show the same way as the Phantom is pointing. The phone compass determines how accurately the red arrow displays in the app."

Could you elaborate? The map displays north up by default, and the arrow shows the heading of the aircraft on the map from the aircraft yaw data. How does the phone's compass play a part in that?

 

[Meta4]

"Your phone's compass requires calibration for the map/radar display red arrow to show the same way as the Phantom is pointing. The phone compass determines how accurately the red arrow displays in the app."
Could you elaborate? The map displays north up by default, and the arrow shows the heading of the aircraft on the map from the aircraft yaw data. How does the phone's compass play a part in that?

The map or radar display gets its orientation from the phone compass.
If the phone compass is out of calibration, the angles won't display correctly.

 

[tevek]

The device being used is an iphone 7 plus. Are you referring to calibrating the compass on the iphone? The drone flew fine. The problem was noticed when bringing it back home. We lined up the red arrow and the blue line toward the home icon on the compass. As the drone got closer, we realized that it wasnt exactly following the same path and was going a slightly different direction. Made the adjustment and landed. There was a powerline about 30 yards away. Could this have caused some interference? Will try again tomorrow.

Sorry for being slow to respond. I had problems a while ago similar to yours on my iPhone 6+. You need to have location service on and any errors with your compass should pop up when you bring it up in utilities. I see others more knowledgeable have chimed in.

 

[sar104]

The map or radar display gets its orientation from the phone compass.
If the phone compass is out of calibration, the angles won't display correctly.

I guess I'm not sure what you mean. I set my map to display with north up, independent of the orientation of the phone, and the aircraft orientation, shown by the arrow, is relative to true north.

You can also set the map to be oriented in the direction that the phone is facing, but the aircraft arrow still points relative to true north on the map. If the phone compass is wrong in that situation then the map orientation will be wrong, but the direction of the aircraft arrow relative to the map will not be affected.

 

[Razorback1]

Sorry for being slow to respond. I had problems a while ago similar to yours on my iPhone 6+. You need to have location service on and any errors with your compass should pop up when you bring it up in utilities. I see others more knowledgeable have chimed in.

Thanks for your reply[emoji1360]