So yesterday, I was in Solvang which is a small Danish type village here in California. I decided to get a birds eye view of the village so I launched the Spark in a parking lot by the antique motorcycle museum. It first told me that it's a low class NFZ due to a small dirt airport nearby. Nevertheless, it allowed me to launch which I did. By the way, I used the OTG cable and was enjoying the flight. I took it up about 10-0-150ft in altitude and the dreaded "No GPS mode" (or something to that effect0 came on as an alert. At that time, the Spark drifted away from me but I still had full connectivity to the craft. I could not for the life of me control the craft to get it back and a sinking feeling set in my gut. I decided to switch it to sport mode and then hit the RTH button. After a few helpless seconds, i couldn't have found relief in that annoying RTH beeping sound and finally saw the craft start coming back to me. I then just flied it above the parking lot looking to see if it's just a fluke and fortunately, it didn't do it again. However, it makes flying the Spark a bit more nerve wracking that this can actually happen. And mind you, the video never flickered or paused which meant I was solidly connected to the craft. Anyone else experience the same thing? is this something DJI might be addressing with a firmware update? Your thoughts. Cheers!
Experienced a Spark fly away for the first time. crapped in my pants a little
- Thread starter asaulo1
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Not sure that counts as a fly away, which usually has a lack of control, and the craft going full tilt to nowhere.
Sounds like you lost compass, which means it disables GPS lock, and will just drift with the breeze. You still have control, but it will be hard to see results too quickly.
RTH technically won't work since it has no GPS lock, yours came back because whatever error it had went away and it returned to P-GPS.
Yes, it is scary when this happens, and it is disappointing DJI has chosen to not allow users to manually select ATTI (No GPS) mode for practice.
Sounds like you lost compass, which means it disables GPS lock, and will just drift with the breeze. You still have control, but it will be hard to see results too quickly.
RTH technically won't work since it has no GPS lock, yours came back because whatever error it had went away and it returned to P-GPS.
Yes, it is scary when this happens, and it is disappointing DJI has chosen to not allow users to manually select ATTI (No GPS) mode for practice.
Sparkbart
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Maybe flying in an NFZ had something to do with it. I too am curious if you mean you couldn't control it because there was something wrong with it and it wouldn't respond to your inputs OR you aren't familiar with flying in ATTI mode and don't know how to control a drone with out GPS (Not bashing you, just trying to understand if it was the drone or you).
Maybe my experience flying in ATTI mode is limited but I have done it in the past with my P3P which in it's initial iterations had issue with GPS lock and flying it in ATTI mode was a needed skill. I do think that being in an NFZ might have something to do with it but until I dig deeper with the flight data, I won't know. I will keep this thread updated once I dive into the details.
Why NFZ would have switched to ATTI mode?
Temporary compass error makes more sense, especially as it had come back with RTH.
Check your DAT flight log with CsvView or post a link to it for further support.
Temporary compass error makes more sense, especially as it had come back with RTH.
Check your DAT flight log with CsvView or post a link to it for further support.
Lancelot
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There is much debate on this. Some say calibrate always, others (and the manual) say calibrate only when told to.
Lancelot
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I am not risking a 600€+ investment because of simple 10 seconds thing that I can do to avoid any mishap.
Here it is explained:
However, if you want to do it, do it correctly.
It has to be first of all away from other objects and metal, and then you have to calibrate it on its axis and not rotating your body with it.
Here it is explained:
It has to be first of all away from other objects and metal, and then you have to calibrate it on its axis and not rotating your body with it.
Yes, a big debate.
What is sure is that you need to carefully select the place where you do compass calibration. It must be clear of any electronic / metallic object around you and especially in the ground (you can be surprise of what pipes or rebar could be in the ground) to have a good quality calibration. The worst is to have a calibration at a place with distorted magnetic field just because the app said to do it. Then it will says that all is fine, but it will be when flying and out of such distortion that the problem will start. Taking-off at some distance from the ground with the support of a plastic box or hand take-off/landing usually solve the issue.
Personally I prefer from long time to do a minimum of calibration of compass and take time to verify it.
After take off, lift it up straight for some height (above your head), check that home point is recorded and check stability, then go for fly.
Learn to fly ATTI mode when thinks goes wrong (use a cheap quad for that).
Sparkbart
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Yeah, huge debate. I've seen in the manual (Phantom and Mavic) where in one section it will tell you to only do a CC when it prompts you to and a few page later it says every time you change locations.
I used to do it frequently with my Phantom 3. With my Inspire, Mavic, and P4 only when it prompts me, or if I notice drift or if I noticed the one display with the error margin is large...
I used to do it frequently with my Phantom 3. With my Inspire, Mavic, and P4 only when it prompts me, or if I notice drift or if I noticed the one display with the error margin is large...
Manazuma
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When in atti mode watch the red arrow for direction and reverse the direction you were heading by reversing the stick. Or release forward stick and rotate in place while watching the arrow in the lower left map box. Before trouble happens tap the box to switch with camera view occasionally to be familiar with map view.
AgentOrange2017
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You originally wrote that the Spark made it to Altitude and then began to drift. This is a clear indication that the IMU needs to be re-calibrated. All DJI drones will normally drift in ATTI Mode but not GPS mode, but if you were in GPS mode and got the drift, the IMU is at fault. Don't believe those that say only to calibrate when called for by the DRONE itself, you are smarter than the drone. Anytime I change location or not, I calibrate the COMPASS every time. The IMU if I take off and get about 20 feet up and it drifts. The IMU and Compass are what tell all the Quads where they are and basically how to fly stable. (DJI Quads). Just follow protocol to make sure you have RTH altitude set and all the other flight parameters set. I use an iPad Mini for flying all of my DJI Quads due to the larger screen. the small phone screen makes it to easy to accidentally hit the wrong command on the screen. Hope this helps.
JD4x4
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I'll be interested to see if this post survives (dreaded "mod" talk), but ..
I know someone who launches in an NFZ all of the time (their yard, with a modded Go4 & AC f/w).
They have only tried RTH one time in this NFZ because the one time they did it did a similar "runaway" happened, with the Spark flying away from the home point rather than to it. The home point WAS set/updated prior to take off. I'm not sure what role the compass plays in navigating from one gps coordinate to another, or how long it would take before correcting itself (or if it even would) when following a compass bearing while the gps coordinate differences kept increasing.
The conclusion they drew from that (and it's pure speculation until they test more) was that somehow the navigation logic tries to avoid flying through a NFZ when it's in RTH mode. In this case, it wouldn't have been logically possible to avoid the NFZ because the home point was within the NFZ. Now, if this turns out to be true then it's a substantial logic flaw, imo.
..Just things to think about, and experiment with. Of course none of this applies to the original post if it never regained gps while returning.
I know someone who launches in an NFZ all of the time (their yard, with a modded Go4 & AC f/w).
They have only tried RTH one time in this NFZ because the one time they did it did a similar "runaway" happened, with the Spark flying away from the home point rather than to it. The home point WAS set/updated prior to take off. I'm not sure what role the compass plays in navigating from one gps coordinate to another, or how long it would take before correcting itself (or if it even would) when following a compass bearing while the gps coordinate differences kept increasing.
The conclusion they drew from that (and it's pure speculation until they test more) was that somehow the navigation logic tries to avoid flying through a NFZ when it's in RTH mode. In this case, it wouldn't have been logically possible to avoid the NFZ because the home point was within the NFZ. Now, if this turns out to be true then it's a substantial logic flaw, imo.
..Just things to think about, and experiment with. Of course none of this applies to the original post if it never regained gps while returning.
Mikel Manitius
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My solution to the compass calibration question is simply to check the compass interference prior to liftoff. If the interference is high but not high enough to trigger an alert you might still have trouble. Or in that case if you recalibrate in an area with high interference you may also have trouble.
So my solution is merely to check. If there is high interference then try moving around 10-20 meters. I suspect that there are often metal things underground that cause interference. A big field that I fly at has one area on the open field with high interference. Move 10 meters aware and there is none.
That's a really good hypothesis!
Come to think of it, my Spark was in an "enhanced warning zone", just on the fringe of an nfz. The logs show an RTH happened (how and why in gesture mode, who knows) where it then flew away. I wonder if this was a factor (though with no app connected, how would it k ow about an nfz?).
JD4x4
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The NFZ databases are in the Go app and also in the aircraft. Go app updates the bird's db.
Buddy411
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Very. What I ended up doing is buying a cheap ($35) drone from TomTop. No GPS and even with a tiny bit of wind it gets squirrelly
-- So you gotta stay on those controls and learn how to coax the AC to where you want it to be. I gotta say, I have as much fun with the $35 thing as I do with my DJI stuff. And no worries if it crashes. :-DHopefully, this new mandatory update addresses all these flyaways that everyone has been reporting. I've grounded my spark and have only been flying the Mavic and P3P exclusively until they came out with an update and sure hope this one does the trick.
It is also very nice when weather is poor, you can still practice indoor without risking too much damage, so light.
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