Dji support tells me that i actually should calibrate before every flight.

Darwish · Feb 28, 2017

Hi, i have been a little bit nervous, as more and more people on the forum are saying that calibrating the compass before every flight could harm it. Personally, i like to always calibrate it, as it seems more safe. But, today i asked DJI tech support. They told me that we actually should calibrate before every single flight. Can anyone prove that he is telling me a wrong answer?

msinger · Feb 28, 2017

See the Compass Calibration Guide for the best known practices.

BlackHawk2 · Feb 28, 2017

The idea behind compass calibration is that it adjusts for variances in magnetic declination/sensor drifts and errors. From the earliest days of multirotor builds, I have had the habit of calibrating the compass. While it is not necessary to calibrate if flying at the same location or close to the same location of previous calibration, it helps to build this as a standard practice into your preflight checks.

Darwish · Feb 28, 2017

msinger said:
See the Compass Calibration Guide for the best known practices.

Thanks! I read the whole post, and now understand. I just remember hearing that calibrating the compass could damage it, like a permenant damage.

Darwish · Feb 28, 2017

BlackHawk2 said:
The idea behind compass calibration is that it adjusts for variances in magnetic declination/sensor drifts and errors. From the earliest days of multirotor builds, I have had the habit of calibrating the compass. While it is not necessary to calibrate if flying at the same location or close to the same location of previous calibration, it helps to build this as a standard practice into your preflight checks.

Thanks for a quick reply!

Kman · Feb 28, 2017

Doing a calibration before every flight can lead to errors, thus causing issues. I only do a calibration if I'm taking off 100 or more miles from the last location I did a calibration.

ianwood · Feb 28, 2017

DJI support leaves a LOT to be desired.

BlackHawk2 · Feb 28, 2017

Kman said:
Doing a calibration before every flight can lead to errors, thus causing issues. I only do a calibration if I'm taking off 100 or more miles from the last location I did a calibration.

Yes and no. Calibration done right can never cause issues. Eventually it boils down to how much experience and knowledge you have in working with multirotors to know when it can be skipped. I try and do my calibration close to or at site everytime I fly. I also do a hover check 30-60 secs. Never had issues with any of my birds. With phantoms its hard to understand what the internals are really seeing. I wish we had a screen to check the rc inputs, imu readings etc.

smiller · Feb 28, 2017

The section below is important. Sometimes the very reason you are seeing compass errors is because you are near a field of distortion, such as large areas of concrete (buried rebar can play havoc), etc. In this case calibrating the compass is exactly the wrong thing to do. Any blanket 'always recalibrate' advice is wrong, no matter who it comes from.

DO NOT Calibrate

If near concrete, buildings, and hidden or overhead power lines / pipes / etc.
If you're indoors, on a paved surface, on a stone surface, on the beach, on a boat, on a balcony, near a car, near speakers, etc.
If there are metallic (ferrous) objects nearby or you're not sure

Roamer105 · Feb 28, 2017

I always calibrate before every flight starting at a new location. If I change the battery for a second flight, but stay at the same location I skip the calibration. So far, this approach has treated me well. I never had a compass issue during a flight and when I check my healthydrone data - the compass number is very low (3 or less). Calibrating the compass most certainly does not "break" anything -- not calibrating could become an issue. I live in southern Utah and my surroundings have many areas of rock that is penetrated with iron ore. No matter what, it will affect the calibration if not downright fail it (which happened in an area of surface lava rock). I ended up not flying there, but, if I did not attempt to calibrate there, I could easily have run into a compass failure during flight due to the environment.

GVDD scout · Feb 28, 2017

Darwish said:
Hi, i have been a little bit nervous, as more and more people on the forum are saying that calibrating the compass before every flight could harm it. Personally, i like to always calibrate it, as it seems more safe. But, today i asked DJI tech support. They told me that we actually should calibrate before every single flight. Can anyone prove that he is telling me a wrong answer?

My advice is to run DJIGo for a system check, and if it gives you all go, then don't worry about calibration prior to every flight. Also as noted in this thread, calibrating or launching from a bad site with transformers, powerline, significant metal structure etc., is not going to give you a valid calibration in most cases it will fail.

With The Birds · Feb 28, 2017

Unfort

GVDD scout said:
My advice is to run DJIGo for a system check, and if it gives you all go, then don't worry about calibration prior to every flight. Also as noted in this thread, calibrating or launching from a bad site with transformers, powerline, significant metal structure etc., is not going to give you a valid calibration in most cases it will fail.

in most cases the calibration in a bad environment won't fail, you will successfully acquire a calibration which accounts for the local magnetic disturbances. Things go south after launch when you fly away from the local influences. In the alternative if you fly from a bad local environment with a known good calibration all goes well once you get a few metres up. I routinely launch from reinforced concrete, the compass throws errors if I try and launch or land from the slab but no issues hand catching. I can successfully calibrate there also but my heading will be off almost immediately after launch.

With The Birds · Feb 28, 2017

It might be that the DJI call centre operator has never flown a phantom. Reading off the script sheet and looking at the manual it's understandable this is the advice you may get. The reality is a known good calibration is better to fly with than one that is potentially bad and unnecessary performed. Bad compass calibrations seem to be a significant contributor to many crashes. A lot, myself included, fly for months without calibrating and have no issues.

AIRSPACE · Feb 28, 2017

With The Birds said:
It might be that the DJI call centre operator has never flown a phantom. Reading off the script sheet and looking at the manual it's understandable this is the advice you may get. The reality is a known good calibration is better to fly with than one that is potentially bad and unnecessary performed. Bad compass calibrations seem to be a significant contributor to many crashes. A lot, myself included, fly for months without calibrating and have no issues.

Im with you Bird.. I am not recommending anyone do this, but I took my drone half way across the world and flew without recalibrating the compass, didn't have a single issue.

bkushner · Feb 28, 2017

I hardly ever calibrate compass unless it calls for it. I'll drive 150 miles away and encounter no issues.. I wouldn't believe anything DJI support told me.

Meta4 · Feb 28, 2017

Darwish said:
today i asked DJI tech support. They told me that we actually should calibrate before every single flight. Can anyone prove that he is telling me a wrong answer?

The manual itself is contradicting the tech support person.
Look at the top of p57 in your manual to see what DJI suggest.
Asking DJI phone support people are a lucky dip - you never know what they'll say or if it's correct.

My P4 pro has been flying perfectly for 3 months now without even calibrating anything out of the box.
DJI didn't suggest any calibration was necessary and that has proved to be correct.

Darwish said:
Hi, i have been a little bit nervous, as more and more people on the forum are saying that calibrating the compass before every flight could harm it. Personally, i like to always calibrate it, as it seems more safe.

The problem with that strategy is you are just doing things to make you feel safer without an understanding of what you are doing or how it works.
Doing stuff just for a warm fuzzy feeling isn't necessarily making anything safer and can have the opposite effect.

smiller · Feb 28, 2017

The original flaw was paying attention to anything DJI Support tells you. The odds of getting correct information from chat is about the same as flipping a coin.

gsreinke · Mar 5, 2017

Kman said:
Doing a calibration before every flight can lead to errors, thus causing issues. I only do a calibration if I'm taking off 100 or more miles from the last location I did a calibration.

I calibrate before every flight and have had no issues or errors

Meta4 · Mar 5, 2017

gsreinke said:
I calibrate before every flight and have had no issues or errors

You have managed to avoid recalibrating somewhere that would have caused you problems so far.
But as it is completely unnecessary to keep recalibrating a perfectly good compass, every time you do, you are taking a risk besides going against what DJI suggest in the manual.