Let me preface this video by saying GoPro doesn’t normally sell parts for their cameras.
Most likely, if you’re trying to repair one, you’ll need to find another GoPro that
is broken in a different way than yours and Frankenstein the working parts together.
Any GoPro that has been opened up won’t be water resistant any more, but you can always
get one of those waterproof housings if you end up doing liquid photography.
Take out the batter and then the rubber faceplate of the camera can be pried away.
There is an excessive amount of adhesive holding it down to the frame that has to do with the
waterproofing.
The outer lens of the GoPro camera can be removed.
There are two straight bars holding it down to the camera body.
I slip one of my thin pry tools underneath and push the bar away from the little lip
that holds it in place, and then the lens will pop away.
This is a lot more difficult than it looks on screen – it is very secure.
The little rubber ring is part of the waterproofing that keeps this camera water tight.
And I’ll explain a little bit more about the waterproofing of the GoPro 5 in another
video.
Luckily these lenses are fairly easy to replace.
I will link any replacement parts and tools down in the video description right below
this video.
So if you need to replace anything on yours the links will be there.
Now that that outer lens is off, the rubber housing can come loose.
Remember that this is extremely difficult.
It is held very very securely in place.
The most dangerous spot is right here down at the bottom.
You don’t want to damage that LCD screen, so be very careful with that.
There are 6 screws holding down the plastic plate to the main frame.
This is a T4 screw.
Remember the tools are in the video description.
Once those screws are out you can gently pry away this part of the body from the back part
of the frame.
Just wiggle it loose and shimmy it out of the housing, but be careful because there
are still wires attached to the motherboard.
These little ribbon cable connectors pop off like little Legos.
Then down here, this little white connector is the power from the battery housing.
Just pop that off from the main board.
Here on the bottom part of the back housing is the loud speaker.
Then I thought this was extremely interesting: along that top part of the housing there is
a little LED attached to the main board.
This LED shines into the plastic and then shines through the back of the LCD.
So the LED that you’re seeing is at a 90 degree angle from the actual LED itself - kind
of how I use LEDs to shine through the Plexiglas in my wall mounted computer.
Check out that video if you’re interested in seeing how those were made.
The battery housing can pop out from the back frame as well.
Just got to line up those little half level grooves and pull that out.
So if your battery ever stops working and replacement batteries don’t work either,
maybe swapping the battery housing will work.
This little door can be removed fairly easily.
You can just clip it back into place when you’re done.
This is great if you’re going to plug in your GoPro for long periods of time and don’t
want that door getting in the way.
Now the rear screen, attached to the rear housing, is non-removable.
Normally with cell phones when you heat up the adhesive holding the screen in place,
it will soften allowing you to pull away the screen from the rest of the body.
But with this particular GoPro they use a type of glue that is not softened by heat.
So if you try to remove this screen it will shatter.
So the best idea is just to swap housings or you have to break out the old screen if
GoPro does end up selling replacement screens.
Either way, check the video description.
I will link all the possibilities down there.
Just remember that there is no way the screen will survive the removal process just trying
to get it out of that frame.
So it’s better to put the internal components into a housing that has a working screen.
There are 4 Phillips head screws holding down the motherboard.
Remove those and then you can unclip the front LCD from the main board with that same little
ribbon cable connector.
Then we have the sensor ribbon cable connector and then the charging port ribbon cable connector
down here.
All of them snap in like little Legos.
I’m using my plastic pry tool to now short anything out here on the motherboard.
Then there’s one other connector underneath this black plastic plate.
This just unplugs; just pull it straight out.
There are no latches.
You’ll see what happens when you try to unlatch this piece of plastic later.
There are two screws holding the charging port into place.
These are super long, so pull those out and set those off to the side.
Make sure you keep all your screws organized.
And then the charging port can be pulled away from the housing.
Then there’s one more screw that holds the plastic housing in place.
Remove that and set that off to the side.
And then the motherboard can be removed from the GoPro 5.
You can see a little bit of the thermal paste on the plastic housing.
One more screw holds the actual lens in place.
Now this is the lens and the sensor.
It has that same super heavy- duty glue that is not affected by heat.
It’s kind of like super glue.
It doesn’t look like this camera has any type of optical image stabilizing.
It’s all internal or electronic.
This digital image stabilization is all done in software and not hardware.
Normally I’m not a big fan of the digital image stabilization.
I’ll have to do a camera test to get a full opinion of it.
Hopefully the images don’t have that jello effect that the Nexus 6P does.
I’m hoping it’s more like the electronic image stabilization of the iPhone.
Now here’s the front LCD attached to the plastic housing.
Remember if you try to remove this LCD it will break because there is no soft adhesive
underneath it.
So just replace the whole LCD and plastic housing if you need to swap those between
your Frankensteined GoPros.
Putting the lens back into place.
There’s a little Phillips head screw that goes along the bottom.
Then you can slide the motherboard in place making sure to keep that LCD ribbon cable
along the top part before you pinch it down.
Plugging in the sensor ribbon cable.
Putting the plastic housing for the charging port back into place.
Screwing it in.
And then setting the USB charging port into place as well.
Taking the two freakishly long screws and setting those down.
And then plug in that little tiny ribbon.
I did check to see if there was a latch and ended up breaking the plastic.
That does not break the connector, but, you know, since there’s no latch you don’t
need to do it yourself.
Making sure everything is plugged in.
Putting that protective flap down into place.
Four screws along the motherboard.
Plug in the front LCD to the motherboard.
And inside the battery compartment there is one more screw that holds the little wires
in place.
That can be removed as well but in this case we’re just going to leave it in place.
Line up the two little grooves along with the half circles on the frame.
It’s kind of like one of those puzzle games as a kid.
I knew playing with that would come in handy some day.
Plug in the white battery cable connector and then the three ribbon cables along that
side.
And then tuck the motherboard and lens back into that back housing.
You’ll feel it kind of gently push into place because it does have that thick rubber
ring around the motherboard.
There are 6 screws holding this into the back frame.
And then you can take your front rubber piece and place that over the top.
Remember since this was using adhesive to hold it in place, it’s not going to go back
on as perfect as it was when it was new.
You’re going to have to get some double sided tape to stick that down.
Or just use some of that gel super glue to hold it down as well.
Make sure your camera works before you do anything super permanent with it though – like
use super glue.
To get the front lens back into place I’m taking one of the little metal bars and tucking
it in on one side and then gently pressing down on the other side while I lift the other
metal bar over the v-shaped clip.
Once the metal bar is bent over the clip it will grab the clip and hold itself firmly
in place.
Once again the rubber housing can be held down with super glue or double-sided tape.
Or, you know, you can just leave it and stick it in one of those waterproof housings.
Either way, now you have a working GoPro instead of a nonworking GoPro.
I’m going to stick that little door back on and then test the camera and it looks like
everything is good to go.
If you have any questions leave them down in the comments.
Hopefully this video helped you out and you can save some money splicing some GoPros together.
Thanks a ton for watching.
Hope to see you around.