- Hey guys, what is going on?
So today we are talking about the controller
for the DJI Spark,
and everything you need to know about this.
(light digital music plays)
So before we get into all the details
about the controller itself,
the first thing you always wanna do is make sure that
your controller is updated and connected to your Spark.
So if you go on the back of your controller
there's gonna be your WIFI and your password.
So what you wanna do is turn on your controller,
click once, and then you hold until all four lights up.
You'll hear the beep and now the controller's on.
So now when you go into your phone,
you'll see a WIFI that is the Spark RC.
And what's you're gonna do is connect to that
using your password on the back here,
which I think they're all 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4.
If it's different, just make sure you check,
it's on the back.
What you're gonna do is in the DJI GO app,
on the home screen where you would
enter your DJI Spark device, on the top of it
there's gonna be a bar that says
you need to update your controller.
So go ahead and do that first.
Alright, if you bought the Fly More combo,
then there's a good chance that the RC
is already paired with your drone.
I mean, I'm almost guaranteed
that your RC is paired with your drone.
But if you're like me, I bought the Spark on its own
and then I bought the controller separate.
So you have to pair it yourself.
Let me show you how you pair your RC to your Spark.
So first thing's first, you're gonna turn on your Spark.
And you're going to turn on your controller.
Now that both of them are on, wait a second,
wait for them to power up.
To link the controller now that it's all up and running,
these aren't working together yet,
so you're gonna hold this for three seconds,
the back button of your drone,
and it's gonna go into linking mode.
So next, on your controller, you're gonna hold
your customizable button up here,
your customizable button here, and this one all at once.
(synchronous beeping)
And then your front LEDs will turn green
and you are paired with your controller
and you're ready to fly.
Alright now that everything's paired up,
everything's working properly, let's turn everything off,
turn the controller off, turn the spark off.
Start fresh, and now what we're gonna get into
is talking about every little bit about this controller.
So let's go over every little function, and key,
and button on this right now.
Okay, so this is the controller for the Spark.
To turn on, you click once,
you hold it down, you'll hear a click
and then the controller is on and it's going to connect.
So from here, let's open up the bottom here,
this is for your phone.
Okay so now your phone is in there
and it's gonna hold it on tight.
Second, you're gonna want to flip your antennae out
but don't leave them like this.
Spin them, so the flat are facing out.
They're gonna be opposite.
So that's your controller set up.
Let's go over each button.
On your controller, you've got your thumb sticks,
that's gonna be controlling everything about your drone.
You have four buttons on the front,
plus a little switch here in the middle.
So your power is obviously up here
in the upper right hand corner
and in the upper left hand corner,
this is your return to home.
So if you ever just want the Spark to come back to you,
and land, you're gonna push this button.
That's your emergency fail-safe
if you want to initiate the process.
Okay, your red pause button is your flight pause
which will automatically stop the drone mid-air,
whatever you're doing.
Your FN is a customizable button
and your sport mode, that's how you make the Spark
go really fast and get it into sport mode.
So to use this, you just flip it over
and now you're in sport mode.
On the top you have four buttons,
you have the back one here which is a customizable button,
you have your photo button, your video button,
and then your jog wheel here, which allows you
tilt the gimbal up and down.
This button we'll go over customizing in a minute.
This one, you hit that, it's gonna start recording video,
this one, you hit that, it's gonna take a photo.
So that's everything on the front and top.
On the bottom, this is where your micro-USB port is.
So this is where you're gonna connect
to your phone using a cable.
This is also how you charge your controller,
so you're gonna plug a micro-USB into this
and plug it into the wall, plug it into your computer,
any source that's gonna give you power.
That's how you charge this,
your lights will be blinking on the front,
and that's how you know your controller is charging.
And then, there's nothing on the back here
except for your passwords
and any information that you may need about the controller.
Alright, let's go over how you set
the customizable buttons, and what they do.
We're on our menu screen here,
we're gonna click the upper right hand corner,
which brings up the menu
and then we're gonna go into our controller settings.
So there's a remote controller calibration,
you can only calibrate your controller
when it's not connected to the aircraft.
So if you're connected to the aircraft,
you're not gonna be able to do that.
Basically what that does is it calibrates the sticks
so if you have any drifting or anything like that,
there may be something wrong with your sticks.
I would calibrate your controller to make sure
that everything is set up properly.
Most of the time you're never gonna have to touch that
so I wouldn't worry about it.
Okay next, is the stick mode.
In the stick mode, it's gonna have all your different modes.
I use Mode 2 for everything that I do,
that's just the way I like to fly.
Then at the bottom here, you can set up
your speed slower to fast.
Mine's all the way turned up fast,
but if you'd like to bring it back a little bit,
this is all gonna come down to flying.
I would play around with different speeds
and different stick calibrations
to figure out what you like the most.
We're back on the main menu screen for your controller.
This section, let's talk about the button customization.
There's two buttons that you can customize,
so it's the one on the front and the one on the top.
But there's a series of things that these buttons can do.
So Camera Forward Down, that is gonna
automatically make your camera, in whatever position it's at
either flip to the top positions, looking straight out
or flip straight down.
So you can use that to basically readjust really fast.
If you're flying and you're at an angle,
but you wanna snap up just to see
what's going on up or below, you click that button
and it will snap it both directions.
Gibmal Follow FPV Mode, first person view,
so this is the button that turns on
the gimbal follow on and off.
I haven't use it much but that's an option
you can have as a customizable button.
Toggle Map and Live View, so this one goes between
your map and your live view.
I use it to basically quickly go back and forth
to where I'm at on the map, to see my flight path is,
then go back and actually fly and see the camera.
The next one after this is Clear Flight Route
and that goes back to the map,
it will clear the route that you've been flying
so you can get all the squiggly lines off of it.
And that is it for your customizable buttons.
So personally, I use the Toggle Map Live View on the front
and I use Camera Forward Down on the top.
That's my basic setup for how I fly all my drones,
for what I like to use for my customizable buttons
because I'm always playing with the maps
and then I always wanna be able to snap my camera
into position whenever I need to.
Alright guys, that's everything in the app
that you need to know about the customizable buttons
and what you can do with the controller.
If you wanna learn more about all the
different features that you have in this app,
go ahead and check out my first tutorial.
It's a long one but it goes through
every little bit about the app.
Okay, now we're updated, we're paired,
I've explained every little bit about this.
The next step is actually getting ready to fly.
So what we're gonna do is go through a sequence
to make sure that everything connects properly.
So first thing's first, the controller doesn't
come with a cable to connect to your phone.
So, if you're like me and you fly an iPhone,
you're gonna need to get one of these connectors.
So what this is, is an OTG connector.
It connects a USB to a micro-USB,
so that you're able to take your iPhone cable
and plug it in, because an iPhone to micro-USB
is not a common connector.
Trust me, I've looked a lot for it.
It's kind of annoying because there's cables everywhere
but it is what it is.
If you want to get a smaller setup, there's smaller cables,
you can clean this up a little bit, get a right angle.
There's different ways to figure out
how to make your controller work best for you.
I was just in Ecuador for two weeks
and I had to get a cable in Miami on my way through,
this is what I ended up with.
In the description below, I'll have links
to everything that I talk about in this video,
just in case you are looking for specific cables
or you need a reference to look at, check those out.
Okay, let's go over the sequence of getting the drone
connected to the controller to the phone,
and then starting to fly.
First thing's first, turn on your Spark,
make sure it's up and running.
Second, turn on your controller just as before.
Make sure that everything is set up
with your controller, your antennas are out.
The next step you're gonna take your phone
and you're gonna put it in your controller,
just like I showed you earlier.
This is all set up.
Now that your Spark and your controller are both on,
it's ready to plug in the cable.
You always do that last because
sometimes it won't connect right if you don't.
I like to make sure I'm on the home screen of the DJI app.
And then what I'll do is I'll have this cable
already connected to itself.
I plug in the iPhone first, it's annoying that it
sticks out like that but it is what it is.
And then I'll plug it my micro-USB
and you're gonna get a little warning on the iPhone
that says this accessory does not work with this device.
Don't worry about that because it does work.
It's gonna check the version
to make sure that everything's updated.
If there's ever an update, do the update
'cause you want to make sure that
your drone is flying on the best possible firmware.
It'll say connected here, and then it'll say start flight.
Click the Start Flight button,
and then you're ready to start going.
Everything should be connected,
and that's the sequence you do
every time you get ready to fly.
Don't try to rush this, make sure you turn on the drone,
controller, put the phone in, plug it in,
and do it in a sequence so that it works every time.
Because I've have issues in the past
where if you try and plug everything up,
just push start on both, it doesn't actually connect.
Now that everything's working,
let's go over the basic commands to make the Spark
take off and land.
When you're ready to take off,
you're gonna have your phone here,
everything's gonna be connected,
you're going to push both controllers inward
or both controllers outward to the max position
you can put them in and that's gonna cause the Spark
to turn on and get ready to go.
After the blades are spinning for a second,
you can push up on the controller
and the Spark will take off,
and from there it's just all about flying.
Now to land, there's two ways to do this
using the controller.
The first is this button here, the return to home.
You're gonna click that, it's going to start the process
of returning to home, it's gonna be beeping.
It'll fly home and then it's gonna land where you took off.
That's it, you don't have to touch anything else,
you've already returned home.
The other way is to manually fly and then when you get
to the position where you wanna land it,
you just bring it down on the controller and hold.
Now, as it's coming down,
you're just gonna keep holding down,
it's gonna land on the ground, keep holding down
until the motors completely shut off.
And that is it for taking off
and landing using the controller.
Guys, that is everything beginning to end,
everything you need to know about the Spark controller.
If you've watched my first tutorial
on how to set up the Spark,
you should have everything prepped and ready.
And now it is time to take off and go fly.
You've got all the basics down, it's now all about just
practicing, practicing, and more practicing
because to become a very good drone flyer,
to get those awesome cinematic shots, you have to practice.
And that's what it takes, it just takes doing it a lot.
You have to know how the drone works
which is why I built these tutorials, put them all together
because once you get all this set up,
it just comes down to flying skills
and it comes down to playing with the controller.
So guys, in my next tutorial we're gonna talk about
basics of flying, just getting you comfortable flying
with the Spark and the controller movements, and all that.
And then we're gonna work our way up to
doing more advanced, complex movements
where you're creating really cool cinematic shots.
Guys, I hope this was helpful.
If you like this tutorial and you want to see more,
make sure you hit that subscribe button,
leave a comment, tell me what kind of videos
you're looking for, if there's anything specific
you'd like to see, and guys stay tuned!
I just got back from Ecuador and we have so much footage
flying the Spark all over Ecuador.
I got to fly this thing everywhere
and it was a ton of fun, I got some rad footage.
So guys, I will see you on the next one.
(inspirational music plays)