EEVblog

[@MikeCochrane]

The solder pads next to the battery connector are the RS-232 UART (serial console) and the JTAG interface. The Hero2 is very similar in style to the Hero HD. I had my Hero3 black in pieces over the weekend. It's totally different - single board, very little aluminium. Ultra dense, a lot less passives. Some fancy black moulded flat flex cables. Two microphones on the main board. Clearly a different design team/company.

[@EEVblog]

It's clearly for heatsinking. Although the stiff frame would also help with any vibration resonant points.

[@dash8brj]

Build quality on that is amazing - its no wonder they survive quadcopter crashes, being lost in a river (yes someone i know found a go pro in a river and it still worked), and dropped off their mounts when people skydive. The Gopro's are as you say build like the proverbial brick dunny, or as tough as a tank. :)

[@Gumby1974]

I think it would be interesting if you did a tear-down of the SJCAM SJ4000 for comparison of build quality.

[@PepperoniPizza]

that would be good

[@michaelparker2449]

That's if you can find a real SJ4000 through all the cheapo copies.

[@iKaGe01]

Michael Parker I have one. The actual video quality is perfectly fine, and actually pretty damn good in comparison. The audio recording isn't, but again, for this kind of thing, you'd most likely over dub it.

[@dash8brj]

iKaGe01 Agree for what these things are used for the audio quality doesnt need to be top notch. They're mainly used for sports, RC models etc, so lets face it, the primary objective of the go pro is to capture good video. Same with the real SJ4000 if you can find one - I'm also looking for one to stick on my quad - not going to risk a $500 go pro in case I have a fly away... The SJ4000 is 99% as good, and way cheaper (for the real one) and audio on a quad is of no consequence, most flyers just dub non copyrighted music over the audio track - who wants to listen to 10 minutes of propellors spinning :P

[@Raattis]

The evolution of the internals from GoPro Hero 2 to 3 is unbelievable.

[@SDino]

I am learned so much about electronics thanks to these teardown videos and also other Dave's videos. Thanks Dave so much.

[@pepe6666]

i watched this right after the worlds shittiest camera teardown. what a remarkable difference.

[@sayujraphael]

Haha me too

[@cr0nosphere]

+pepe6666 I did the same thing, I have a go pro hero 4 black i'd love to see what the inside of it looks like.

[@ArchiverUnknown]

+pepe6666 Same!

[@themrenerd7384]

I did that too, completely random

[@nojussucksatgaming195]

s@me

[@Polaventris]

Brave man taking the lense assembly off. Hopefully you got it back together and fully functional without any misalignments and/or dust inside it.

[@vikdylan7868]

Back To The Future is one of the most overlooked movies ever. That's when movies were great.

[@alangreenspan4078]

It sure was!

[@EEVblog]

Yep, works perfectly after re-assembly.

[@thewii552]

I think the high noise in narrow angle is not only because of the fact that the ISO is higher because of less bright stuff, but less of the sensor is being used (which can sometimes introduce more noise)

[@dave20thmay]

Did it work, when it went back together?

[@Kevins93cobra]

I think that's the most impressive aspect of the video. Hats off to you!

[@MOTOSNOWRIDER]

Dave, I have been using these camera's since the very very early days, before they were well known at all. Anyways I would really like a tear down of the new hero 3 plus, just to get your opinion of it from an electrical engineers perspective.

[@drew79s]

I'd guess that apart from heat sinking the metal is there for structural support of the boards during impact and to warm the battery when submerged in water. Your videos are awesome BTW I'm a mechanical engineer and I'm trying to wrap my head around electrickery, your videos are very informative. ;)

[@FooBar89]

I love the iPhones, the system engineering there is insane, one little board with everything on it

[@lougrims]

I remember reading somewhere there is a mode for cold climate which heat the battery to get keep in running longer. It might be the reason for some of the heat-sink.

[@insidegui]

The metal also serves as a battery heater, so the camera can be used in extremely cold environments.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Mic not on PCB probably so it can be shock mounted to reduce noise from handling etc.

[@jatigre1]

Can you imagine going back 50 years and showing one of these with the LCD screen attached to an electronic engineer?

[@mail2259]

Thanks Dave for that teardown, I use one on my helmet & can testify they are one tough unit, my videos show that.

[@TheRoknemec]

I've been waiting for this for a loooong time! Thank you! Cheers from Slovenia, Rok

[@ArumesYT]

0:12 Absolutely right. Never seen such a mess before. Hoarder. 2:00 Your theory is incorrect. GoPro doesn't have a zoom lens. It uses digital zoom for narrower angles, which is essentially a type of amplification. It uses less signal (less captured light) and expands it to fill the entire screen. So there's more noise.

[@douro20]

I believe the chip right next to the custom SoC is SDRAM.

[@frollard]

6:10 pretty sure that's the battery heater -- as a 'feature' it works in very low temperatures by heatsinking directly into the battery.

[@ivanpolchenko]

I can't imagine it all being for the sake of heat sinking.. i think this is more for the whole package stability, for the extreme conditions the camera needs to operate in. Also the heat sink in the back, is to keep the battery at a constant temperature. Which either by design or side effect, helps it behave properly in extreme outdoor temperatures.

[@zakburns6434]

Nice Haiko soldering iron

[@luketansell]

Just as a FYI, the metal plate on the back of the board is a battery warmer to keep the battery warm for when the GoPro is in snow. P.S. In Australia the GoPro's over-heat a lot because of the battery warmer. (It's programmed to shut off at a certain temperature)

[@KelvinW344]

Why did they fill the thing with aluminium and still not have an aluminium outer case? Wouldn't that fare much better thermically?

[@parillo12]

to save on the weight factor :)

[@LasseHuhtala]

Nick Parillo I'd say the Benjamins-factor. :-)

[@qpae123]

You really thinck an aluminium case will rezist to the same mechanical shock?The gopro case is almost bullet proof lol.

[@ornotermes]

The serial interface in the A5s chip could be used for GPS.

[@lowlypawn]

I use these GoPros a lot and couldn't help notice how poorly they applied the thermal compound. Looks like if they coated the entire chip with some Arctic Silver you could really improve it's cooling performance. Maybe a worth while hack?

[@WayneJohnsonZastil]

Gold looks so awesome on electronics!

[@drood78]

Great teardown as usual dave +1 the time spend engineering this thing is insane i think i realy like it

[@eurokid83]

The lab looks pretty impressive Dave, I like it!

[@zapilimne]

As you can see there is no really good heatsink on the main chip. You can see large blob ot thermal grease on the chip and on the aluminium heatsink too. There is no pressure between them, i suppose there is a gap, maybe a millimeter or two. This kind of heatsinking is a very good idea but in this particular camera it will not work due to low quality of assembly. Sorry for my English.

[@lowlypawn]

Las Vegas is hot! & next year I'm planning a VERY long motorcycle ride, should take almost 3 weeks riding 8 hours a day! I plan to use a GoPro2 hardwired to my motorcycle with several 32 gig cards. This GoPro needs to run 8+ hours every day for 3 weeks straight in 720-30FPS mode. Yea I could use the time lapse feature but speeding up 30FPS footage looks soooo much better IMHO. The goal is to condense the entire trip into a 10 minute video. So that's why I noticed the thermal compound.

[@KenCarTechMeow]

@EEVblog You should try out a "808 #16 keychain camera". Cheaper and smaller than this thing, and easily found on Ebay.

[@atharrasul]

Going great on those teardowns.. Please put some time in uploading that power supply pcb layout video.

[@Paul2.4T]

im watching this then going back to the hero 4 tear down and damn theres a huge quality difference.

[@WhiterockFTP]

Please do more teardowns and more videos on the power supply (;

[@RaivisRengelis]

that 10 pin IC is ADS1013 12bit 3.3KSPS ADC by TI

[@envisionelec]

10:43 The 10 pin TI part is an ADS1013

[@dancraggs]

The 10-pin chip you couldn't identify is a 16-bit ADC from TI.

[@zonkaaron]

Additional mass would also reduce the effect of high frequency vibrations.

[@ElNeroDiablo]

Y'kno what's funny? At the time this video came out back in Dec 2012, I already had my hands on a GoPro Hero3 Black (about $500 AUD shipped in mid-late 2012, $425 from JBHiFi now. Around $530AUD for the H3+ Black at DSE or JBHiFi), and had to wait until like April or June 2013 before finding gear for the thing (such as Skeleton Frame or Tripod Mount) in stores like Tricky Dicky (Dick Smith Electronics) & JBHiFi.

[@atharrasul]

Gotta love eevblog!

[@AndrewChan84]

It's got shitty signal to noise ratio at high gains! I bought one and the first time I used it was at night. No issues under broad daylight though. Looks like a 16 layer PCB on one of those boards, 3 boards, and a proprietary chip more, complicated than you though it was, ha! Thanks for the video. BTW, did you signed a non-disclosure agreement to get that datasheet?

[@68pishta68]

I hear that C11 J476 tantelum cap is the root of all no-power evils...? Just under the lens. Great shot at 12:21 by his right thumb and solder ball. Mine wont turn on so I had to check out a tear down video and this one does it well.

[@EEVblog]

I have not had any time to work on it.

[@helloworldstein]

The thing rarely overheats unless you have it running for hours in the middle of a desert or something. Basically, its unnecessary for the most part.

[@damiang.8817]

You should have ended showing a clip from it when its put back together :P

[@michaelparker2449]

Sounds like you're taking through an old tin can.

[@bbrvvvvv1]

Great Teardown Dave!! Thanks, did you get it back together OK? Werner

[@douro20]

The Seiko Instruments MS621FE is a rechargeable lithium battery, developed out of Seiko's experience with making rechargeable cells for its Kinetic series of watches.

[@5Komma5]

How did this thing get so popular? The artifacts from the mic give me a headache. Can not watch the first part of the vid....

[@nazul1996]

Mirko You should always use an external microphone, no matter what camera is being used.

[@vinceanthony467]

Janne Tiensuu

[@aftertwotoo]

Thanks Dave! I have one of these and it spews out RF noise all over the place. This is especially a problem on a quadcopter as you can't get a GPS lock when there is a GoPro anywhere near the GPS antenna. I have mine wrapped in kitchen foil which helps but looks stupid, after watching this I'm wondering if I can pull it apart and line the inside of the case with something. Any thoughts on this?! Should I try to ground the shielding?

[@ForViewingOnly]

Big sensor on that thing, looks much bigger than a compat camera sensor. Looking at the website specs for the camera it just says 'professional 11MP sensor' and 'professional low light performance'. So is this a DSLR size sensor? If so, very nice indeed for the price.

[@adam7868]

on the hero 3 the heat is dissapated around the lens and to the outside of the case

[@EEVblog]

I'm not going to toss a new $300 camera in the bin!

[@FyberOptic]

Given how much those cost, I would have actually expected better quality inside. I just thought it was a bit sloppy, especially not putting the interconnects into actual slots rather than just slapping them along the edges.

[@ChipGuy]

Yay Dave, almost 400 blogs. KEEP IT UP :)

[@krisraps]

Your workspace is my dream

[@misium]

Whats up with the awful metallic sound from the gopro?

[@LasseHuhtala]

Sounds to me like low bit-depth. I read somewhere that it's 8-bit, which is really bad for today's, or even the standards, 10 years ago.

[@ndyag100]

The audio sounds odd on that GoPro, are they all like that? Great teardown.

[@ParadoxdesignsOrg]

how'd you finally get the lense off? i've read to give it a crank clockwise with plyers then unscrew it, buy i put tons of pressure on there and nothing moved! ideas?

[@kinstar]

smack it with a hammer that always work

[@GeorgeGraves]

Did you check for dust on the sensor/lenses after putting it back together? I can imagine that it would really end up dust free! Did it?

[@mausball]

Microphone choice was probably governed by handling noise. Looks like it's in a rubber isolator of some kind. Pretty standard. It also helps to weather seal it.

[@Snooze-vy1yo]

How did you take the lens off? Also I think I have to change out my 3.5mm input jack out and would like to see that part of the product. Ty.

[@dawgrules1]

Outstanding video, thank you for your effort ! I plan to open my Hero2 to solder a lead to the shutter for activation by Arduino - Any insight is appreciated as I do not have a ton of experience with things such as this! Thanks

[@Guybrush1816351]

I had the gopro right next to my F800GS engine on a mount, It actually overheated and took a shit on the sd card and lost some footage when turning itself off :)

[@kernel_data_inpage_error]

PCB board looks very tough, it's shock proof?

[@cristiansarti4761]

Can you even do this with the digital hero 5?? (i know that is a absurd question...but maybe..)

[@KOTR2003]

How can people wonder if he got it back together or not? Not like he was destructive to get the lens off to open it up, it was held to the top board by screws.

[@JAH1R]

Why do they mark the components like the memory in 09:15, Where i used to work they did this to BGAs to indicate they have been reballed but i dont know any other reason

[@shmaat]

Is there a place where I can find the schematic of the motherboards itself?

[@bryanhuff5671]

I realize this post is over 6 years old so I will probably not get a response but... I need to do the same thing but need to get to the video sensor. Sounds like to do that you have to remove the lens but you did not show how you actually got the lens off. Could you please explain or show how you did that? Thanks very much in advance.

[@krisraps]

i need to work with my workshop, the space is huge, but there is a huge mess :D any suggestions?

[@kedwa30]

KrisRaps Bins. Labeled bins. When you're not working on something, dump it in a bin, slap some tape on it and write the date or some useful information, then stack it to the ceiling. Think of the work like it's data in a computer. The stuff you want to work on is in the cache or on or around the workbench. The stuff you want to get to soon goes in plastic bins stacked to the ceiling. That's the RAM. The stuff you have for later goes in a cardboard box, gets sealed and stacked somewhere else... anywhere else so long is it is out of your workspace. That's the tape drive. Keep track of what you have and where it goes on a spreadsheet on the computer. Keep a copy of that synced in the cloud. As for organizing your tools, you can have a long work bench with individual stations geared to specific tasks or you can have a chest of drawers next to your workbench with your tools in them and get them out and set them up as you need them. It takes discipline. You have to set up one rule: workbench space is never to be used as storage. If you're not working on it, it goes in a bin. If there are no bins left, then get a cardboard box and empty some bins. There are, of course, plenty of examples where this just won't work. How do you put a giant 150lbs. plasma TV you just got from a dumpster dive into a box or a bin? You don't. You put a high priority on gutting it for the parts that do go in a bin then take the metal to the scrap yard for recycling asap. Use the glass in a window or as a table topper. If I did this, my mess would be clean. heh heh

[@DanaTheInsane]

The audio is horrid!

[@xDylan25x]

+Tak Wolf Hero 3 has way better audio. I think he's using the waterproof case (worse audio). You're supposed to use a different back piece in low wind and he should have been been using it with no case (though I've never tested w/ and w/o case). Again, no clue about the 2, but 3 is pretty good w/ the case on.

[@playaspec]

No word on the CCD size?

[@TeemoDIY]

I's got digital zoom only. That's why quality drops on narrow-angle.

[@myfastcars]

Did it work after reassembly???

[@MatMabee]

Is the A5 chip the same as used in the apple mobile electronics?

[@6toeNL]

I really enjoyed this episode. Good to know what's in side my camera flying 400m high :p Thanks!

[@Novous]

I... I love your lab. All it needs is a dog, and I'd call that Heaven.

[@markd8593]

aluminum...... not copper. where he clears heat in the closed case? battery heats itself - Lithium battery itself is harmful heating

[@Vynncent]

2:16- there's what appears to be a white ip camera, why not do a teardown on that?

[@Hexureus]

Just wondering, How do you solder those kinds of processors?

[@AHaensel]

Isn't the lens of the Hero 2 user replacable like it is on the HD Hero?

[@nothing000]

If the chip can do 240MPixels/s (8MP@30fps) where is the bottleneck then, to not give this functionality to the user? Memory bandwidth?

[@BarneySaysHi]

I have that exact same camera, I use it as a driving camera on the dashboard of my car.

[@AndrewTSq]

Ive got one of these, and im not that satisfied with the quality. Its got tearing when things move around sometimes :/ great teardown anyway!, love your videos.. and please more retro-computers :)

[@Mroboman4321]

Whats with the ghost on the whiteboard? :P

[@spartan7126]

watching this while playing around with my Hero 3 GO GO PRO

[@mattregal3913]

Yea, dropped from airplanes, under water, on off road vehicles and they still work. Don't leave the damn thing in a nice safe dresser drawer. I charged mine all up and took it on vacation but it wouldn't turn on.

[@dietalkaa]

I just bought your T-shirt, lovely!.

[@jeffbankston8806]

Very rugged little cameras Look how solid that solder is they have dropped off planes and drag cars and found after lost in the sea and they still work

[@mattrechax4149]

Hello I have a question. My go pro hero sd card was stuck I made a lot of presure and I broke it the contacts of the sd slot hardware of the go pro , it is posiblle to fix it, do you have some video with this problem

[@ScramblerUSA]

Aww, I LOVE this OUTATIME plate!

[@nathanmuckensturm1530]

Hello, my GoPro H2 is dead but the led still becomes red when I plug it to the computer and then insert the battery, I opened it like u did, but I don't see any problem, do u guys have any clue ? (When I press the front button, nothing happens)

[@CompactSandwitch]

I recommend you go to support.gopro.com and check and see if your warranty is still avalible

[@KitCox]

Kilroy was there.