On the Bench This Afternoon: GoPro Hero 2014 EditionPicked this up last time I went grocery shopping; had to plug it into my PS3 controller charger, because, like those controllers, it doesn't charge unless it successfully negotiates USB handshaking.
After charging overnight it showed almost full; this may actually be a good thing as it was deader than a doorknob when I got it.
Curious, I decided to pop the back cover off; not really a lot to see except a couple PCBs and a battery. Interesting that they used a HV LiPo to get more runtime tho. I REALLY expected to find the battery all bloated and puffy; poking it revealed it is hard as a rock. That fact combined with the long charge time may actually indicate it is fairly healthy... at least as healthy as a 6-year-old commodity LiPo can be.
Steve Jobs would've been disgusted at the wasted space and called this thing a "bubble full of air".
GoPro got a lot of flak about this model back in the day; the integrated case and lack of 1080P/60FPS made folks in my FPV Quadcopter circles call it the "Cheapout Edition". At that time, Mobius had released the Model 2; it had 1080P/60FPS, much improved optics (over its older models), and a $80 pricetag in a package 1/4 the size/weight. Not armored or waterproof like the GoPro of course, but weight was a much higher priority on our whirry little flying things.
I bought a Session when these were both being sold at the same time; had it long enough to develop a loathing for the GoPro Studio software and to have it brick itself on a FW update. Fortunately, well within the Amazon return window, so I happily sent it back and bought a Xiaomi Yi action cam fully kitted out for $99 and spent the rest building this:
At this point, not a lot more to tell; after a few minutes with Q-Tips cleaning sand out of all the crooks & nannies it looks pretty good. Took a few disturbingly distorted pics of my own round face and poked around on the 16GB CF card (Nice surprise: Sony Class 10/UH probably worth more than I paid for the whole camera) that was still in it.
I was hoping to find some nice juicy compromising videos; but all there was is a few pics of some guy bro-ing down on his tropical vacation with the card mostly full of feet vidz and oodles of time-lapse shots of the insides of various baggage.
I'll see if I can actually get contact with the LiPo cell itself and do a IR measurement to confirm its health; otherwise I may be able to do a few charge/discharge cycles through the protection PCB to see if it has anywhere near expected capacity.
I'm still vacillating over whether to allow GoPro software on ANY PC I own long enough to update the FW; the possibility of 1080P/60FPS does make me think.
mnem
*lunch-dwagon*