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Drone, stabilizer and camera (5 Black) won't wake up

Bluecoyote

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Hi, If anyone can help me I will be so grateful and happy. I have a Karma Drone with the 5 Black, and grip purchased in 2017. For Christmas last year (2018) I got a 7 Black and updated everything. I hadn’t flown the Karma for several months and then after getting the 7 my girlfriend and I went to Moab, Utah where I attempted to fly the Karma. When I powered up the drone the stabilizer did not wake up and the camera did not come on. I powered everything down and tried again with the same result. I power cycled the drone and the controller several times switching up the order several times—nothing worked. When I got into cell range I called Go Pro and spent about 2 hours trying every troubleshooting technique we could think of. Nothing worked. After more time with them on the phone they agreed to send me a new harness which I installed and which had no effect on the drone. Go Pro has refused to replace the drone and never even offered to repair it. They say it’s out of warranty (which it is) and wants nothing to do with me anymore. So the drone is in the same condition. When I hit the power button on the drone the LED lights come on as well as the power button light. The stabilizer does nothing and the camera does nothing. If I turn the controller on first and try to pair it with the drone by holding the power button on the drone for eight seconds the drone LED’s blink, but the stabilizer does nothing and the camera doesn’t come on. The power button, once the drone LED lights come on doesn’t do anything, I have to pull the battery out to turn the drone off. The drone won’t pair with the controller so I can’t update anything but the controller which is running version 2.50. Does anyone have ideas? Has this happened to anyone else?
 
Have you tried using the 5 black and the 7 black? Does the stabilizer work with the Karma Grip?

I really don't know what the issues might be...If it isn't the harness, another logical option is the stabilizer, but it is much more expensive to replace. I imagine Iike you...I would be hesitant to spend that much money on something that may or may not solve the problem. Does Gopro think the stabilizer might be the issue? Could you get them to offer a discounted replacement? Could you borrow one from someone else and see if that fixes the problem? Maybe if you talk really nice with a Best Buy Manager, they might let you experiment with the floor model of the Karma Grip? You might be able to find one on ebay too... but honestly...for the full price of the Stabilizer...you could almost purchase a refurbished version of the whole Karma Kit.

It doesn't sound like you use it all that much for the trouble to be worth it to you...but those are some of my ideas...
 
Do we know if the harness for the Hero 5 and the Hero 7? Guess they mount the same? When you power on the drone the stabilizer and camera should power on too - if not that seems to be the first problem. @Shon also brought up a good test: does the harness and 7 work in the grip?

Side note: just went through 5+ months of "issues" with my Karma and Hero5. What started out as a "Can not find Stabilizer, Please reinsert" problem ended up with the replacement of 2 harnesses, 1 stabilizer, 2 Karma cores and a WHOLE lot of me cursing at the dumb-a$$ tech support people. (who BTW are trained to tell you how much "They Understand" and are "Completely Sympathetic" to what I was going through! NO you are not, you work for GoPro and get your sh!t fixed for free!) One thing I will tell you is; if you do not get the answer you are looking for from one tech support (idiot), either keep calling back or ask for a supervisor. I ultimately went through 3 supervisors before getting them to replace the entire unit, with what they told me was a factory refurbed and TESTED unit. PLUS, I did get a free battery and a couple accessories during the process.
 
Hi, If anyone can help me I will be so grateful and happy. I have a Karma Drone with the 5 Black, and grip purchased in 2017. For Christmas last year (2018) I got a 7 Black and updated everything. I hadn’t flown the Karma for several months and then after getting the 7 my girlfriend and I went to Moab, Utah where I attempted to fly the Karma. When I powered up the drone the stabilizer did not wake up and the camera did not come on. I powered everything down and tried again with the same result. I power cycled the drone and the controller several times switching up the order several times—nothing worked. When I got into cell range I called Go Pro and spent about 2 hours trying every troubleshooting technique we could think of. Nothing worked. After more time with them on the phone they agreed to send me a new harness which I installed and which had no effect on the drone. Go Pro has refused to replace the drone and never even offered to repair it. They say it’s out of warranty (which it is) and wants nothing to do with me anymore. So the drone is in the same condition. When I hit the power button on the drone the LED lights come on as well as the power button light. The stabilizer does nothing and the camera does nothing. If I turn the controller on first and try to pair it with the drone by holding the power button on the drone for eight seconds the drone LED’s blink, but the stabilizer does nothing and the camera doesn’t come on. The power button, once the drone LED lights come on doesn’t do anything, I have to pull the battery out to turn the drone off. The drone won’t pair with the controller so I can’t update anything but the controller which is running version 2.50. Does anyone have ideas? Has this happened to anyone else?
Just try with the 5 maybe is the camera ports , it happen to me when the drone was brand new
 
Hi, If anyone can help me I will be so grateful and happy. I have a Karma Drone with the 5 Black, and grip purchased in 2017. For Christmas last year (2018) I got a 7 Black and updated everything. I hadn’t flown the Karma for several months and then after getting the 7 my girlfriend and I went to Moab, Utah where I attempted to fly the Karma. When I powered up the drone the stabilizer did not wake up and the camera did not come on. I powered everything down and tried again with the same result. I power cycled the drone and the controller several times switching up the order several times—nothing worked. When I got into cell range I called Go Pro and spent about 2 hours trying every troubleshooting technique we could think of. Nothing worked. After more time with them on the phone they agreed to send me a new harness which I installed and which had no effect on the drone. Go Pro has refused to replace the drone and never even offered to repair it. They say it’s out of warranty (which it is) and wants nothing to do with me anymore. So the drone is in the same condition. When I hit the power button on the drone the LED lights come on as well as the power button light. The stabilizer does nothing and the camera does nothing. If I turn the controller on first and try to pair it with the drone by holding the power button on the drone for eight seconds the drone LED’s blink, but the stabilizer does nothing and the camera doesn’t come on. The power button, once the drone LED lights come on doesn’t do anything, I have to pull the battery out to turn the drone off. The drone won’t pair with the controller so I can’t update anything but the controller which is running version 2.50. Does anyone have ideas? Has this happened to anyone else?
Another thing is when you are mounting the camera into the harness you have to be very careful, because the ports (2) of the camera are very delicate so that’s a good reason for the drone don’t recognize the camera and with that situation drone don’t start. Hope you solve the problem .
 
Any luck fixing this issue. I have the exact same situation. Gopro Karma drone with my Hero5 worked fine. Upgraded to Hero7 and the stabilizer on the drone will not power on, nor the camera. Is this the end of the road of my Karma as I can't pair with the controller, most likely due to the lack of stabilizer/camera.
 
Hi, i have the same problem after 6 months without using my drone.
When I powered up the drone the stabilizer did not wake up and the camera did not come on. Battery is fully charged and I cannot turn off my drone, i need to remove battery to turn it off... I didn't change my camera, my drone already flew with my hero6. I tried differents reboots, nothing change. When i use stabilizer and camera on Karma grip, everything works well.

Does anybody found a solution to fix this problem ?
 
I know this thread is pretty old and other people have said the same thing with no response but I am pretty desperate... I have the same problem as described. Stabilizer does not initialise in the drone even though it works fine in the grip... Have tried with Hero 5 & 7 and it's the same. Did anyone manage to fix / solve this ?
 
I can confirm the same is happening with mine and the original hero 5 camera. I purchased a new harness at the suggestion of GoPro support, but not luck.

Drone flew perfect last time I had it up which was about a month ago.

I'm not opposed to cracking it open, I just don't know where to start.
 
I can confirm the same is happening with mine and the original hero 5 camera. I purchased a new harness at the suggestion of GoPro support, but not luck.

Drone flew perfect last time I had it up which was about a month ago.

I'm not opposed to cracking it open, I just don't know where to start.
When you had it in storage, did you have the drone battery and camera installed together with the drone itself or did you took the camera and battery drone off and left the gimbal in the drone under storage?
 
Unfortunately, I left it all connected. As I'm starting to learn from reading this forum, that wasn't a great idea.
 
Yea, those capacitors leak DC current and destroy the mother board.




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
So I'm guessing my only option is to get/buy a new motherboard and replace it?
 
You may have to contact GoPro to get one. They were listed on their US web page but no longer are. They did send me one after they told me to get a new gimbal assembly and it didn’t work, so I still think they have some.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Well, bad news. Apparently they do not have the motherboards anymore. Guess I will have to eBay this guy and cut my loses.

Thanks for the information and help. Guess I learned my lesson on leaving the batteries/cameras plugged in.
 
Well, bad news. Apparently they do not have the motherboards anymore. Guess I will have to eBay this guy and cut my loses.

Thanks for the information and help. Guess I learned my lesson on leaving the batteries/cameras plugged in.

They sell the whole body and call it the “core”. I am not sure they ever sold mother board itself.

I was being extremely facetious in my comment above. Capacitors cannot be root cause of failures as suggested by others. Have no idea what is going on technically but suspect many, many more Karmas have no problems, than have problems.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Aye...
Well, whatever they used to call it, they don't sell it anymore. All I got was "we don't manufacturer those anymore".
 
Where you located? I called support in USA. They were supportive.
 
Yeah, US. I asked several times and two different agents. Got the same reply.
 
That’s to bad, means they have run out of even rebuilds. I guess eBay time. Good luck.


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