Possible to recover Akaso V50 Elite?

[ricardoB]

Hi

I have a couple of Akaso V50 Elite which, I believe, is Chipset: iCatch V50 and Sony IMX 078 Sensor.

One of them is working fine but the other one does not boot - it displays the boot logo and plays the boot up sounds but then goes into a blank screen. I have tried the standard firmware upgrade process via SD card with available firmware file "AKASO-V50Elite-20190819-V2-C" BRN file but the screen stays blank (no message about updating firmware). Interestingly, the working camera reports a firmware of 20190823-V2.

Akaso tech support have been no help, since I am in UK and I don't have original order details for the camera.

Is there any was to use the Sunplus firmware utility to try to recover the camera?

[nutsey]

Is your faulty cam detected by a PC when connected with USB?

[ricardoB]

Is your faulty cam detected by a PC when connected with USB?

When I connect to PC with USB, the PC "chimes" to show something connected but nothing showed up. If the camera is turned off when I connect it, the action "wakes" the camera and it shows the boot logo and startup sound but then goes blank (on my working camera, it should go into selection menu)

I installed the icatch_2000 driver and the PC shows two icatch entries in Device Manager when I connect the camera.

[nutsey]

the PC shows two icatch entries in Device Manager when I connect the camera.

Does it happen only with your working camera?

[ricardoB]

Does it happen only with your working camera?

Not just the working camera - the non-working camera shows up in Device Manager with the icatch driver also.

[nutsey]

You can save your working cam's firmware backup and try to upload it to the faulty one.

[ricardoB]

So, I presume I plug in the working camera and use "Get" on the "Advanced" tab to backup the Firmware - or the RSV? (Apologies but I have never used the s/w before).

I would then plug in the non working camera and use "Program All" or "Backup/Restore RSV" ?

[nutsey]

Something like that. I don't have a V50 camera to try if it works or not. Seems like the backup consists of the 'A' and 'B' folders and the 'WDV4K.bin' file.

[ricardoB]

So the download from the working camera was successful, got the A and B directories, AIMG, BIMG, the firmware, etc.
Uploading to the non-working camera seemed to go OK (no errors doing a "Program All")

but . . . the camera still boots to a blank screen.

Any other thoughts, ideas or is this just a dead camera?

[nutsey]

Try reconnecting all ribbon cables inside.

[ricardoB]

Yeah - maybe a bit of taking it apart is in order. I'm still in "discussions" with AKASO support (i.e. me saying "will you fix this?" and them saying "no" - on repeat) on the email, so I''ll maybe give it a couuple of days before I go down that route.

I think the only ribbon cable inside is the one connecting the main board to the LCD - and that appears to be working OK, since the screen comes to life. So it maybe on a hiding to nothing.

[nutsey]

It could be a CMOS sensor ribbon cable problem.

[ricardoB]

So, since AKASO have basically told me I'm on my own and won't offer any support, I went ahead and dismantled the beast.

There were 2 ribbon cables attaching the LCD to the main board.
There were another 2 ribbon calbes attaching a smaller circuit board to the main board.
Then there was a large ribbon cable attaching the CMOS censor to the main board.

I released/reseated/refastened all of these and, putting the camera back together, tried again: unfortunately, same result. Boot logo, boot up sound, then blank screen.

The camera is now going in the trash.

Thanks for your comments.

[slackingoff7]

I was able to recover my camera from a soft brick using THIEye T5 Pro Firmware through FRM/PC. If you still have it, give it a shot. I was not able to load the Akaso firmware on a SD afterwards though and it looks like I lost image stabilization. Otherwise the camera records and and has most functionality.