I was shooting today with a rented M5. Past two days have had no issues. Last shoot of today was at the top of a building at the tip of Manhattan directly under the Freedom Tower. When I turned it on the compass failed. Turned it back off and back on after switching the batteries. Now the compass, gyroscope and almost every other option on the main error section was failing. After trying to calibrate it the lens was pointing down at a 45 degree angel. When I picked it up to move it around and see if I could deal with it, it was just pointing further down. Reset to factory defaults, changed batteries again. Turned it off again and tried to recalibrate. Same thing. Then the focus wheel started spinning so quickly that it popped off the focus ring and just spun. Turned it off and went to my shoulder rig for the shoot as we were loosing light. Brought it down from the building and booted it up. No problems. Calibrated fine. Works perfectly. Does the Movi not work at high altitudes? We were surrounded by solar panels and where about 35 stories (not too high) from the street. Almost ruined the day. Can't find any info about this. Thoughts?
High level of RF interference or EMI. About a year ago there was one of forum members flying in a downtown area that nearly lost a copter. Flying past a building he flew near enough to some microwave antennas that he couldn't see and the copter went out of control. Not surprised that the compass would have an issue with the amount do steel in a building.
Thanks. I'm sure this was it too. It's funny now but while it was happening it was terrifying. I was sure I broke something. I wish this shortcoming is more well known.
Dennis: I can only imagine the terror! The problem is that you're using equipment that uses 2.4Ghz for its command and control frequencies -- and that's shared by WiFi and microwave ovens -- and if you are close enough to any kind of "serious" transmitter (of the form that you'd find on top of a building, e.g. cell site, microwave link) -- they emit so much radio frequency power that it doesn't even matter what frequency they are transmitting on -- they will "shout" louder than your little hand-held transmitter or even induce errors in electronic equipment like the MōVI. Even if you were not using the MōVI remote controller, the MōVI's receiver is still "listening" to see if you might turn on a transmitter -- and therefore is still susceptible to radio frequency noise. Solar panels themselves emit direct current, but they typically use "inverters" to convert the DC into AC -- and those can emit RF noise as well. Solar panels can cause strong magnetic fields because they are provide DC at very high currents. So, the bottom line is that the problem is indeed well known -- it's not so much a shortcoming of the MōVI I'm afraid, as it is a shortcoming of electronic devices being operated near high powered emitters of radio frequency, high current, or electrical noise. I've even seen laptop computers behave oddly under such circumstances (albeit in the earlier days of laptop computers -- they're a little more "hardened" to the RFI and strong magnetic fields now). Andy.