GoPro HERO3+ Black battery

February 21, 2019 5:53 AM

A secondhand GoPro HERO3+ Black won't stay on for more than a couple of minutes. Is this just because the original battery is old?

Yesterday I picked up a HERO3+ Black, secondhand -- it's my first GoPro. (I have used a couple of Chinese knock-offs, but never a real one.) After charging via a USB port for a couple of hours, it won't stay powered on for more than a few minutes. I also charged it overnight on a strong Anker battery pack, and it wouldn't completely boot up this morning.

Is this just a consequence of the battery sitting unused for over a year (based on the age of the files on its SD card)? Or could something more serious be amiss? Can I run it off the power cable without any battery, to test its functioning?

I got it to run long enough to update to the current firmware, but that doesn't make a difference in uptime.

Should I just buy a replacement battery and see if it helps? I am reluctant to pound money into a device this old, but if it's likely to help, I am willing to try. That is, could this thing still have terrible life with a new battery?

Thanks in advance!

posted by wenestvedt to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (3 answers total)

The HERO3+ came out in late 2013, so it's entirely plausible that you're trying to charge a battery at least five years old. Any lithium-ion battery that old, especially one that's been repeatedly run down to almost nothing before being left sitting flat for a year, will be pretty much done. Twenty bucks on a new one sounds like a good bet to me.
posted by flabdablet at 7:43 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

very likely a dead battery.
posted by zippy at 11:11 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

If it's anything like the HERO5 it sucks batteries like nobody's business, especially while recording, so you're going to want extra batteries anyways.

(there are a bunch of cheap knockoff batteries out there, I've personally had good luck with the Sabrent brand ones)
posted by neckro23 at 8:02 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]