Hi, my naked GoPro 12 stopped working on the first day and I'm looking for tips how to troubleshoot and repair it. Following context:
- GoPro doesn't turn on anymore when pressing Mode / Rec Button. No light, no LCD activity, no heating up - seems fully dead. However, I can measure 5V on the GoPro mainboard. So power supply seems fine. 
- Already tested it by powering through the GepRC BEC, original USB adapter and the battery - same situation. Also tested it by hooking up all the original components 

- The GoPro initially worked fine. I suspect that I "killed" it by using my flight controller to drive the Record button with 3.3V on pin-io 1 output. Assume that the GoPro somehow got short-circuited btw. the 3.3V from the flight controller and the 5V from the BEC (battery). 
- I have a half-broken GoPro 11 lying around which I can use for spare parts

Following questions:
- Any thoughts how to troubleshoot this further? e.g., which pins I could measure on the mainboard? see attached pictures
- Do you know which SMD chip manages the power on the mainboard (so that I could replace it)?

Thank you

I honestly doubt there will be anyone here who knows the wiring of the GoPro power circuits, and it's not even certain that 11 and 12 use the same chip that could be interchanged. These questions are more likely to be answered by someone who deals with GoPro repair.

I have several Naked GoPro versions 6, 8 and now 2 pieces of 11. I control them all without problems from FC using Pinio. I really don't want to believe that the Pinio control signal could have caused this. Can you describe in more detail how the GoPro was destroyed. And I use 3 BEC boards from GepRC, they have always seemed to me to be the best designed. Some older BEC boards from other manufacturers did not have protective input resistors and insufficient filter capacitors and therefore destroyed the GoPro. But with the current BECs, I feel that they are reliable, so I'm surprised ...

Just one more piece of advice. Perhaps this is a fairly classic problem. The problem lies in the fact that if you destroy the USB power line, your gopro will no longer work on the naked BEC, because it only uses the USB power line. So try to connect the battery and at the same time connect a normal naked BEC so that you can control it and try to see if you can turn on the GoPro, if so, then it can be solved further.

You are testing with an original battery and it is charged? Maybe worth trying a soft reset by holding down the power button for 15s and you may also try with SD card/battery removed, but if your LED is not even blinking then it may not help.
What is broken on you GP11, if it is only the screen then maybe you can install labs and at least have a working camera.

Thank you MamoBrut and mstc. Sounds indeed like this will be tough to fix... Let me test your two tips later this week. I already tried running the GoPro with the original battery connected (sufficiently charged) and the original button modules without success. Let me measure on the mainboard if I then see 5V and also try connecting battery and BEC buttons at the same time. Will also try the reset tip from the video.

Not sure what exactly killed my GoPro but the last thing I did after it was working fine was to unplug the LiPo battery and then plug it in again for 3 seconds only to reset the Vifly beeper. I suspect that the Pinio gave an ON-signal to the GoPro during the 3 seconds FC boot-up and then unplugging the LiPo battery with the GoPro running or booting up must have caused a short-circuit / spike (even though I have a anti-spark filter in front of the GoPro and FC). The flight controller was also partly broken after this - the output pin for one of the motor didn't work anymore. Didn't test the Pinio yet. So either the Flight Controller caused a spike / short that killed the GoPro via Pinio or the other way around.

Either way, learning for me is:
- to not plug/unplug the battery for 3 seconds to reset the Vifly beeper
- to better not connect the REC-cable via Pinio to stay on the safe side. One source less that can kill your GoPro...
- to not unplug LiPo battery when GoPro is running (make sure that it doesn't switched itself on by accident)

GoPro 11 and 12 boards are nearly identical - assume they only upgraded the main chips and firmware. My GoPro 11 doesn't work anymore after a crash but the LCD still gets power (backlight) and the lens looks fine. Something on the mainboard must be broken as well. Hence the idea of potentially SMD-solder over some components. 

I'm debating if I should get another Naked GoPro or if there is an alternative more robust camera that delivers good quality:
- O3 Air Unit with ISO 100 settings etc. might be just okay enough. Hope there will be an O4 with better quality later this year
- DJI Action 2 in Vertical mode - but there the 20GB / 32 GB storage isn't enough for me
- GoPro Bones - might be more reliable
- Full GoPro 11 Mini felt too heavy - tried it and sold it again

Any thoughts welcome on what camera to get for FPV 5 inch. Quality matters most for me to post vertical on Instagram. O3 Air Unit quality is borderline. But I cannot continue burning through GoPros at this rate... What are your learnings / recommendations?  

Thank you! Amazing community!

If I had to say personally what happened, it was probably a spike during the connection, definitely a 6s battery, right? I personally don't think it was Pinio. Naked GoPro must never be reconnected to power (through naked BEC) without delay until all capacitors are completely discharged, I never plug in naked GoPro immediately after unplugging it, wait at least 6-7 seconds, then it's fine. Another thing is that I use macros with triggers, one of them works in such a way that after activating the recording, this macro automatically stops the recording first and then automatically turns off the GoPro. And the trigger is a higher value detected in the IMU, which happens when I land. This will solve my problem of never turning off the Gopro before the recording has finished properly and the GoPro has properly shut down. And it will also protect your naked GoPro from burning if you fall too far and don't get there in time to disconnect the battery. Much more can be done.

Maybe I would start by asking what are you making the video for? Is it just a recording of some freestyle? It's about showing how effectively you can stretch yourself in flight, do we understand? Or on the contrary, the goal is to make a shot where it should have a composition, it should look a certain way, etc. etc. ... In the first case, the least painful compromise is probably the DJI A2 with all its disadvantages. In the second case, especially the Hero 11 or 12 in the most naked version for 33 g has absolutely no competition, it supports LOGB400, WIDE Gamut, 10bit color, adjustable noise reduction filter, etc. Of course, these are all non-standard settings for someone who knows GoProLabs, but the result is miles away far from the setup for standard GoPro customers. There is no comparable camera that is capable of this for 33g, including the ND filter.

I fly mainly sub 5", do slower conservative flying when carrying a camera, and only render horizontal video so I could be way off.
If robustness is important, then I would say skip the naked cameras. For IQ, I think it will depend on personal taste and your typical flying environment/style. To my eyes the O3 and Action2 are quite similar, high bit rate, good details, ultrawide FOV, but not great in shadows/backlight, personally I find Gopro color/exposure more pleasant. I never tried the bones, but seem to have read more complaints about it, and that it was priced nearly the same as the fullsize didn't make sense. I did pick up the 11 Mini though as it was on sale many times, thinking I would decase it, but never got to it. I would have thought it would be ok on a 5". But otherwise maybe you can consider some of the older full-sized Gopros. For example GP8 is 89g without the battery which is actually much lighter than the mini (they should have made the battery removable on the mini). An added advantage is you can find the older GPs used for very cheap if you look, some with defective screens, but if they still record, you can try flashing GPlabs or controlling it via BT. I have a handful of GP6/8s that I've bought for $40-150 and stripped. I only have Naked 6s and 8s, but have not had any issues with them and as they are not prone to freezing/overheating like some of the later models, possibly making them more reliable? But also I only run 4S, if you are on 6S, maybe those spikes are more damaging.

GP11/12 has the nice 8:7 5.3k sensor, but if you are rendering for instagram you wouldn't be able to use that resolution, and any of the older gopros with their 4:3 4k/2.7k should still give plenty of extra pixels for crop/scale to instagrams max 1080p resolution. The newer GPs will have much better in-camera image stabilization, but if you are doing it in post (Gyroflow or Reelsteady) then I don't think there is any difference. I do notice the shadows/HDR is nicer on my 11 than the 8, but if you color grade or use LUTs I don't think the difference is so big.

Thanks again - super helpful thoughts :-) Good thing about FPV flying is that you get smarter every time 

Yeah, was indeed a 6S battery on my AOS 5. Few questions:
- What do you think burned in case of such a spike? If it's only a few capacitors, I could replace them...
- How do you recommend connecting the GoPro power to avoid this going forward? Directly to the balance lead or better to the power input of the FC after my iFlight anti-spark filter?  I assumed the power in of the FC is better so that it is protected through the anti-spark and the FC capacitor. But maybe the ESC also causes unhealthy spikes... 

Regarding my next camera:
- I'm flying cinematic FVP and increasingly long-range. You can check my instagram profile "sky_fly_memories". My AOS 5 is 400g without battery but I like flying with my Auline Li-Ion 4000mAh 6S batteries that give me 15+ min flight time but bring me to 800g. So a 50g cam on top works fine but adding a full GoPro just makes it not agile enough on this 5 inch. My next drone will likely be 6+ inch to avoid the GoPro compromise...  
- O3 Air Unit / DJI Action 2 quality is indeed just not good enough especially when lighting conditions are not perfect and the colouring/level of detail is not at a GoPro level
- Hero 8 is a good idea - without battery it's only 90g and naked even less
- GoPro 11 Mini should indeed have a removable battery, then it would be perfect. Decasing it however is not straight forward with the big heatsink and you need to solder a wire on the mainboard to make it work without battery. See YouTube
- GoPro Bones looks interesting. Wonder if their BEC / setup is less prone to spikes. Overall seems also more durable. But living in Europe it is hard/expensive to get one
- Alternatively I build another GepRC Naked GoPro 10/11/12 and put it into a light TPU-mount to avoid the cracking of the mount / back panel when crashing. That's what killed my first GoPro 11. This mount looks perfect: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5973551

If you are flying cinematic long range and not bando/freestyle then maybe a naked camera is suitable. You just need to figure out how to cleanly power your GP. I don't fly 6S or LR, I believe Momobrut has plenty of experience with that, but I share my thoughts anyways.

For macros, I don't know if Momobrut means adding a separate MCU to regulate this or maybe in GPL, it will be interesting to read his method, but there maybe some simpler solutions. If your drone has a 9/7v BEC, that maybe a better source than directly from the lipo, I assume 6S spikes will not get through? But if you cycle your lipo quickly, it seems you can still damage your GP. Alternatively you can run a reliable higher rated BEC between your lipo and your GP BEC, although you would need to test as not all BECs play nicely. Some BECs have an enable pin, which you can hookup to a hard switch, or otherwise there are also mosfet switches, which you can setup to default off. Leave the switch OFF when you plug in your lipo, so NO power will reach the GP, only after you have powered your drone, then turn ON the switch to power your BEC/GP.
Similarly when you land, you have to remember the steps to a) stop recording, b) power off gopro (optional), c) power off switch before disconnecting lipo.

Othewise if you don't mind an extra 30g of weight, you could always power it off the GP battery if you are building your own Naked GP. Then you don't have to worry at all about lipo spikes, just have to remember to charge/swap the GP batteries.

As for GP8, if you have not used one before, I think it would be worth a try to see if you find the quality acceptable. I got mine a few years ago, now I see you can get fully working used ones for less than $100.

Thank you mstc.
Just googled a bit and found the following solution to avoid spikes - basically adding a second BEC to go to 9V and a capacitor.



Guess this filters out all spikes. I could add this even after my anti-spark filter. So setup would be:
0) 6S LiPo
1) iFlight Antispark & ESC Capacitor
2) 9V BEC
3) Extra Capacitor for GoPro at 9V
4) GepRC Naked GoPro incl. 5V BEC

What do you think?

Too many things at once...
First of all, the GoPro can't bear the increase of supply voltage above 5V, if it is exceeded, the internal circuits of the supply and other circuits will probably be destroyed, it all depends on chance. The GoPro is simply not designed to be powered by higher voltage sources. Naked BEC is a primitive circuit of a switching converter, the state of which is guaranteed only in the phase of the full rise of the circuit and the feedback function. During the application of voltage (up to 6s) to this BEC, the state before full ramp-up is inherently unstable. How it will behave depends on the impedance of the load connected to it. The explanation would get more complicated, I won't explain it further. In general, it is necessary to ensure that the current when connecting is minimal, preferably slowly increasing, during the start-up of the BEC. An antispark circuit is used for this. I don't know what you use, because you talked about it, and I don't even know what the manufacturer uses in principle. I have my own antispark circuit that I use on 7 quads.

In any case, it may not be clear to everyone, any functional antispark circuit (not all of them have to be functional btw) must always be connected to the load first, i.e. to the GoPro naked BEC and only then to the power battery, if you connect it in the reverse order, the antispark circuit will not work at all.

So cinematic ... so it's clear what to use. The Hero 8 is an excellent camera for how small and light it is. However, if I compare the shots with the Hero 11 at the same and correct and the best possible settings after RS stabilization, the Hero 11 is significantly better. And now I could write at length why and in what. And I didn't take into account that the Hero 11 is 10 bit color, LOGB profile, Wide gamut, etc. It's just that the work in the post-process is much easier and leads to really excellent color reproduction, or on the contrary, one can get quite carried away in terms of colors without artefacts in histogram.

(30-Jan-2024, 12:48 AM)sky_fly_memories Wrote: Thank you mstc.
Just googled a bit and found the following solution to avoid spikes - basically adding a second BEC to go to 9V and a capacitor.



Guess this filters out all spikes. I could add this even after my anti-spark filter. So setup would be:
0) 6S LiPo
1) iFlight Antispark & ESC Capacitor
2) 9V BEC
3) Extra Capacitor for GoPro at 9V
4) GepRC Naked GoPro incl. 5V BEC

What do you think?

More streaks more adidas?
Many times I have encountered in fpv that something is offered that is not needed or it is just completely wrong. And solving a problem by simply adding something somewhere or taking something away without knowing how it works just doesn't work. FPV is such a strange world, every manufacturer makes something and doesn't solve compatibilities, they don't have to ... that's very dangerous for someone who doesn't understand things. In the case of the manufacturer's naked BEC design, this is extremely dangerous because their 10 bucks product can destroy a 400 bucks GoPro.

How it should be. A naked BEC should have its own output filter capacitors large enough and with a low enough ESR. When applying a voltage greater than 3s, there should be limited peak current during the rise of the naked BEC, so all 4s and 6s batteries we use should have some kind of current peak reduction circuit. Adding an extra capacitor at the naked BEC input doesn't solve anything. I'm not saying that adding another whole BEC won't work, it just depends on how it happens. In principle, the point is that I don't have just one switched circuit unstable during the start, but two connected in a row. In principle, this is not a good solution.

And as usual, everything is already here, just need to find, even my antispark, including the damn BEC product from BetaFPV.

https://intofpv.com/t-naked-gopro-becs

And as for the Naked GoPro mount, again a classic case of the manufacturer's stupidity and the user's mistaken expectation. Those mounts on the Naked Gopro are designed for cinewhoops, for indoor shooting, where you fly very, very slowly and a small crush does not mean the destruction of the entire case and possibly even the GoPro... But the manufacturer won't tell you this. For any other use, a belt-type attachment that hugs the camera body is needed. Or a full case, I have several of them, look at the photos...

With FPV, sometimes the convenient/hack solution will work just well enough to get you by 95% of the time, and maybe the elegant or proper solution will get you to 99%, but each pilot can decide for themselves what works best for them. Of course playing with a $100 camera you can afford to be a little more brave, but for a $400+ camera you certainly want to do as much research as you can and especially if you've already been bitten once.

As for multiple regulators in series, there is potentially problems, but in practice this kind of circuit is all over our FPV setups and for the most part works fine. I used to run my Naked 6 off 2S lion and used a step up regulator to power the Naked BEC, but each setup could be different.
I would definitely consider adding a switch, maybe some may view it as an extra point of failure, but if you are comfortable integrating that into your process, it is a sure way to keep power away from your GP when you don't want it. If you don't add a switch, then you will need to remember not to cycle your pack quickly (ie for your finder).

Another "bad" recommendation for thought (I do this a lot) is I often run my GP BEC off the balance lead, but drawing off only the 3 cell pin    Yes this simple solution will place an imbalanced load on your pack, but the camera power consumption is maybe 3% or less compared to the drone consumption. Again I don't run 6S, so my advice maybe way off, but just points to consider.