Every drone enthusiast wants to have a thrilling experience when flying their drone. If your drone keeps drifting all over the place instead of hovering steadily, you can feel frustrated rather than exhilarated.
The good news is that trimming your drone could help improve your experience significantly. The question is: How to trim your drone?
Find all the info below!
First of all, you should know that not all drones require trimming. If you have a state-of-the-art GPS-equipped drone, you can skip this article. However, almost all cheaper drones, such as kids’ drones, mini drones, or selfie drones, will need trimming sooner or later.
Do not get discouraged if trimming your drone seems a bit complicated at first. It is actually relatively easy to master, and you will soon get the hang of it and even have a lot of fun doing it.
Once you do master trimming, you will be able to act quickly and resolve any issues your device has while flying. When you learn how to trim your drone, you will never panic if your drone makes a sudden move, tilts, or drifts in any direction - you will be confident in your ability to solve such problems and restore your gadget to perfect balance.
What is drone trimming, and how to do it?
Drone trim refers to balancing aerodynamics. How is it done?
You need to use your drone's remote controller to adjust its roll, pitch, yaw, and throttle. An adequately trimmed drone is perfectly balanced and can hover in one place without you providing any input via the controller.
In order to trim your drone, you need to use the four trimming buttons most drones have on their controllers, and those are:
- Right
- Left
- Forward
- Backward
If you use the drone manual to help you trim your drone, you should know that the left and right buttons are referred to as the roll trims, while the backward and forward buttons are referred to as pitch trims. You can use these buttons to resolve stability issues such as right and left drift and forward and backward tilting. To help balance altitude, you must trim the throttle.
It is highly recommended that you do use the manual provided with your drone to resolve any issues. Most of the manuals will provide you with detailed instructions on how to trim a drone. It would thus be helpful to go through the manual in detail before attempting anything else.
If you do not have a manual, or your manual is missing the instructions needed to trim your drone, here is a step-by-step guide that will help you trim your drone correctly:
- Locate the trim buttons around the control pad. Use the controller screen to monitor the trimming process.
- Hover your drone approximately 7-10 feet above the ground and try to identify in which direction it is drifting.
- Land your drone and trim it in the opposite direction of drift, which means:
- If your drone has been drifting to the right, trim it to the left.
- If your drone has been drifting to the left, trim it to the right,
- If your drone had trouble taking off and going up in the air, pull the throttle button down.
- If your drone is spinning to the right or left, trim its jaw.
- If your drone drifts both left and right, adjust its roll trim.
- If your drone drifts backward or forward, adjust its pitch trim.
- Do not be alarmed by a beeping sound; it is perfectly normal. The drone controller has a built-in speaker that will produce this beeping sound while you trim and adjust your drone.
- Repeat the whole process until you are 100% sure your drone is in perfect balance and can hover steadily.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiOZZ_1GOHM
If you want to avoid problems during the drone trim process, you need to remember the following guidelines too:
- Do not try to trim your drone while it is in the air, or it can fall, get damaged, or even hurt someone. Trim your drone ONLY when it is landed.
- Do not adjust more than one setting at a time, or you might get confused.
- Do not attempt to make the adjustments while your drone is making sudden movements.
Why should you trim your drone?
As we have already mentioned, using a well-trimmed drone provides you with a much better and far more thrilling experience. Trimming helps improve your drone's efficiency and balance and makes controlling your device feel natural.
Besides, if you do not resolve issues such as unintended tilting and drifting in a timely manner, your device can end up having much more severe problems or even crash. It is better to act as soon as you notice a problem and avoid any permanent damage.
Does your drone need trimming?
If you notice your drone drifting a little in the air, it does not necessarily mean that you need to trim it. Make sure that the problem is not in the wind or some other factor that has nothing to do with your gadget.
On the other hand, if you have calibrated your drone and you still notice that it's drifting a lot, it is time to trim it and improve its performance.
How to reset trim on your drone?
You can restore the trim settings to the factory default by using the digital trims. Start by pressing the trim button and then move the joystick past the middle. At this point, you should hear a distinctive sound that signals you are doing things right. Continue pushing all the way in that direction, and then trim the opposite way until you hear the sound once again. In this way, you will trim back your device to its original setup.
What if the trim did not solve the problem?
If you have done the drone trim and your gadget still has stability issues, it might require calibration. Namely, the internal compass of the drone, also known as the IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), can cause your drone to drift when not calibrated correctly too. Therefore, if drone trim does not help, try calibrating your drone as well.
How To Trim Your Drone: Final Words
If you have done everything right, you can go out and fly your drone. The chances are that you will have a much better experience now that your device has been trimmed correctly. Enjoy!
