EEVblog #399 - GoPro Hero 2 Teardown

[fchk]

No dust in the sensor? No screws left?

[EEVblog]

Dave.

[shadowless]

Dave, do some measurement with your spectrum analyser, apparently it spew out a lot of radio noise.

[EEVblog]

No dust in the sensor? No screws left?

Works fine.

Dave.

[robbag]

Hi Bloggers,
Just for your own information, this company sells and installs various lenses for the GoPro depending on your functional and performance requirements. I.e. you can convert the stock GoPro into a night vision camera using the Infrared lens. 

http://ragecams.com/shop/gopro-hero2-hero3-lenses-c-72.html?osCsid=43c2d280c27da4556f841091b233c544


Robbie

[Ed.Kloonk]

I would appear that GoPro have a death wish for this old camera. The latest firmware known as v198 relased Oct 2012, which is forced upon you when you use the cineform software or buy a new accessory such as the wifi bac pac, is known buggy.

Stops recording for no reason.



The above youtube user has spent hours of his own time trying to figure out wtf. This is where he's at so far...

Published on Oct 13, 2012

Update 8 Nov 2012 - I've been able to duplicate this problem with a SanDisk EXTREME 16GB card (from GoPro), after an in-camera format. This is NOT a problem caused by "cheap" cards, and it's NOT a problem caused by 32GB cards. It's a firmware problem that affects some cameras.

And reading the comments, I am wondering if this company is setting itself up for a major class action. There are users following the upgrade instructions and bricking the camera. Then GoPro say that it's either out of warranty or -you bricked it- or waste months getting the camera back to it's owner after the round trip from California.

They have a mechanism that forces the old camera to brick itself just in time for the release of the new hero3. Nice.

A y/t commenter:

They've acknowledged that the v198 firmware is causing hanging & freezing problems, so if it's out of warranty by a few days you should be able to push it... Assuming that it worked fine? up until you updated to v198.

Really? I used the windows Cineform software for windows a week ago and it updated to a new version of CineForm. Then the camera wanted to update it's firmware by nagging me every second mouse click.

There was no mention or warning that there were known problems at any stage during the updates. Only when I restart the camera something was obviously wrong. So I looked on the net. Prolly should have done that first. But when you buy the wifi bac pac and are told to go and update the camera's firmware, you'd expect it not to stuff the camera.

Oh well. Nice to look inside the camera. Hardware wise, it is very well engineered. But all other aspects of the product, Holy Mother of Jesus. What a disappointment.

Edit: oh and this guy shows how to windback the firmware by hand:

[kolbep]

http://cheezburger.com/6890669824

[amyk]

Slightly amusing (if somewhat useless) hack of a camera using the same SoC:
http://spritesmods.com/?art=zx3hack