Compass failing ?

[biltno]

Thanks ahead of time for any piece of mind I can get regarding my H with Obstactle avoidance.
It only has 20 short flights on it and never had even the slightest glitch.
The compass was never calibrated on it and if I position it and my phone next to it the compass on the phone and the compass on the ST 16 read almost identical. I figured if it’s not broke don’t fix it.
It always landed right within 8 feet of me in the Home mode as well.
Yesterday , I powered everything up , attempting to fly in one of the same places I always do and I got a warning saying compass failure land in angle mode. I rebooted twice, same thing. I decided not to fly it, came back home, powered it up and everything is normal .
Obviously when the compass warning occurred I had no gps connection.
Is this an idication of failure? I really don’t want to have a fly away! I’m just confused that if it was just calibration, why didn’t this warning appear long ago? Seen lots of instances in the thread search , but not really any in the sequence mine occurred. Thanks again for any input

 

[FlushVision]

Thanks ahead of time for any piece of mind I can get regarding my H with Obstactle avoidance.
It only has 20 short flights on it and never had even the slightest glitch.
The compass was never calibrated on it and if I position it and my phone next to it the compass on the phone and the compass on the ST 16 read almost identical. I figured if it’s not broke don’t fix it.
It always landed right within 8 feet of me in the Home mode as well.
Yesterday , I powered everything up , attempting to fly in one of the same places I always do and I got a warning saying compass failure land in angle mode. I rebooted twice, same thing. I decided not to fly it, came back home, powered it up and everything is normal .
Obviously when the compass warning occurred I had no gps connection.
Is this an idication of failure? I really don’t want to have a fly away! I’m just confused that if it was just calibration, why didn’t this warning appear long ago? Seen lots of instances in the thread search , but not really any in the sequence mine occurred. Thanks again for any input

Not calibrating the compass before the first flight is always going to be a bit of a gamble. Often is the case that you won't see any problems, but sometimes you do. Always remember that the time before you got it, it was calibrated in China probably some months before you took delivery.

It seems, then, that you have been a bit lucky in not seeing any problems for your first 20 flights, but sooner or later it will throw up a warning to calibrate as yours has done. Many reasons for this: exposure to a magnetic source (a radio speaker, metalwork in the ground, electrical cables, etc.).

A warning to calibrate the compass is not an indication of failure...It's just the system telling you that you should calibrate the compass before you take off...indeed, you should never fly it if the system is telling you that it needs a compass calibration.

 

[Steve Carr]

I would remove the camera and the props and do the compass cal. Then reboot the H. Leave the camera off to do a test flight. If you see the warning again see if it says it needs a calibration of if it failed. Also it might be a good idea to leave the Calibration menu open when you take off so that you can disable the GPS quickly if you see a problem with controlling the H. It is somewhat common to see compass warnings when you are lower than 30' and when raising and lowering the gear.

 

[biltno]

Thanks for your reply
I don’t get to fly often in Connecticut this time of year. I finally flew yesterday after calibrating compass
After a couple flights, I got the warning again.
I looked through a lot of past issues and found the same warning a lot of people get when powering up with the controller too close to the H. Is this possible? One other question I have... can you just calibrate the accelerometer and not the compass or gimbal at the same time or do they all have to be done in sequence? Thanks ahead of time

 

[Steve Carr]

Thanks for your reply
I don’t get to fly often in Connecticut this time of year. I finally flew yesterday after calibrating compass
After a couple flights, I got the warning again.
I looked through a lot of past issues and found the same warning a lot of people get when powering up with the controller too close to the H. Is this possible? One other question I have... can you just calibrate the accelerometer and not the compass or gimbal at the same time or do they all have to be done in sequence? Thanks ahead of time

They can be done individually. I usually do the accelerometer on the kitchen table which I know is level.