Mobius suddenly acting screwy - solid blue light on startup

[thephatmaster]

Hi all,

I have a long-serving Mobius that's not booting reliably. It's just hanging at a blue LED. Or, sometimes, a brief flash of the blue and three flashes of the red - then nothing - no leds.

The Mobius has seen a lot of use, and taken a lot of whacks. It's been used as a ski camera, dashcam, cycling helmet cam, second camera for youtube videos - you name it.

Not sure of the hardware revision but it has 2015 written on the board.
Hi all,

I have a long-serving Mobius that's seen a lot of use - used as a ski camera, dashcam, cycling helmet cam, second camera for youtube videos - you name it.

Not sure of the hardware revision but it has 2015 written on the board.

My dad wanted to borrow it for gliding and the battery was getting tired so I replaced the battery like for like (800-ish mAh one), and put a 128GB card in (Amazon Basics).

I got it back (he hadn't even been using it) and now it won't boot up reliably. Most of the time it just freezes at a blue LED and seems unresponsive. Nothing from the red LED. To power it back off I have to hold "power" down.

Or it does the brief flash of the blue, followed by three of the red, then turns off.

Things I've tried so far:

1. Charging until the green LED went away;
2. Booting with and without the SD inserted;
3. Resetting it with a pin;
   1. This did get it to boot once into mode 1 - I shot a quick video (LED flashed orange and it wrote a file) but it froze again after a few seconds.
4. Trying the SD card in my PC (the brief video I made was fine);
5. Trying to view footage on my PC with the camera connected over USB (also fine);
6. Opening it up:
   1. blowing on everything in the usual way;
   2. checking the board for obviously blown / damaged components - nothing obvious;
   3. removing and re-seating the battery;
   4. removing and re-seating both ends of the lens connector

Anyone know what's going on? or any other steps I can take to investigate?

My dad wanted to borrow it for gliding and the battery was getting tired so I replaced the battery like for like (800-ish mAh one), and put a 128GB card in (Amazon Basics).

I got it back (he hadn't even been using it) and now it won't boot up reliably. most of the time it just freezes at a blue LED and seems unresponsive. Nothing from the red LED. To power it back off I have to hold "power" down.

Things I've tried so far:

1. Charging until the green LED went away;
2. Resetting it with a pin;
   1. This did get it to boot once into mode 1 - I shot a quick video (LED flashed orange and it wrote a file) but it froze again after a few seconds.
3. Trying the SD card in my PC (the brief video I made was fine);
4. Trying to view footage on my PC with the camera connected over USB (also fine);
5. Opening it up:
   1. blowing on everything in the usual way;
   2. checking the board for obviously blown / damaged components - nothing obvious;
   3. removing and re-seating the battery;
   4. removing and re-seating both ends of the lens connector

Anyone know what's going on? or any other steps I can take to investigate?

 

[TonyM]

My dad wanted to borrow it for gliding and the battery was getting tired so I replaced the battery like for like (800-ish mAh one), and put a 128GB card in (Amazon Basics).

I got it back (he hadn't even been using it) and now it won't boot up reliably. Most of the time it just freezes at a blue LED and seems unresponsive. Nothing from the red LED. To power it back off I have to hold "power" down.

Or it does the brief flash of the blue, followed by three of the red, then turns off.

Did you verify that it worked OK with the replacement battery before you gave it to your dad?

Have you tried going back to the old battery, if you still have it?

Did you format the 128GB card in-camera?

Have you tried a different microSD card?

 

[Dashmellow]

Have a look at this old post from Tom Franks over at RCGroups. I would suggest inspecting and reseating the ribbon cable once again to ensure that it is making a good connection.

RC Groups - View Single Post - The Mobius 1 ActionCam Support Thread (Posts #1-#7 mandatory reading!)

RC Groups - the most active Radio Control model community: electric and fuel rc airplanes,rc helis,rc boats and rc cars. Features discussion forums, blogs, videos and classifieds.

www.rcgroups.com

 

[thephatmaster]

Did you verify that it worked OK with the replacement battery before you gave it to your dad?

Have you tried going back to the old battery, if you still have it?

Did you format the 128GB card in-camera?

Have you tried a different microSD card?

I did verify it was working with new batt and card, and shot a couple of short videos.

It was a long time ago, so unfortunately I don't remember how I formatted the card.

I tried a 32GB samsung card and the issue persisted.

 

[thephatmaster]

Have a look at this old post from Tom Franks over at RCGroups. I would suggest inspecting and reseating the ribbon cable once again to ensure that it is making a good connection.

RC Groups - View Single Post - The Mobius 1 ActionCam Support Thread (Posts #1-#7 mandatory reading!)

RC Groups - the most active Radio Control model community: electric and fuel rc airplanes,rc helis,rc boats and rc cars. Features discussion forums, blogs, videos and classifieds.

www.rcgroups.com

Thanks,

I'll work through that thread and see how I get on.

 

[thephatmaster]

So I took at look at this and looke like somethig went wrong with the card. It seems ok with a different one formatted on *shudder* Windows.

Now back to it's work of being a dashcam, helmet-cam etc - but first it's getting strapped to my Roomba

1. Dead battery: Nope, 4.19v on the meter

2. Memory card communication error: I did an in-camera format of my 128GB card - nothing:- after that it booted to solid blue, even connected to the PC.
I also tried a Samsung 32GB card in SDformatter.exe for good measure. That seems to be working for now.

3. CMOS module ribbon cable not fully inserted, inserted crooked, or has a cracked trace: traces look fine, nicely seated both ends.

My camera is not recognised by mSetup.exe, but perhaps because I'm using Win 11 - connects fine as an external drive.

 

[thephatmaster]

Actually, all remains not-well.

I did get msetup running on Win 11, updated from 2.37 to 2.41, slapped the camera on the Roomba and......

Now the camera only records a short while then turns off (on either card) - need to check the memory card for videos once I get off work today.

 

[thephatmaster]

Have a look at this old post from Tom Franks over at RCGroups. I would suggest inspecting and reseating the ribbon cable once again to ensure that it is making a good connection.

RC Groups - View Single Post - The Mobius 1 ActionCam Support Thread (Posts #1-#7 mandatory reading!)

RC Groups - the most active Radio Control model community: electric and fuel rc airplanes,rc helis,rc boats and rc cars. Features discussion forums, blogs, videos and classifieds.

www.rcgroups.com

So after some progress (even one video recorded) - see above - I'm still experiencing freezing (both with and without cards installed). Either freezing blue, or freezing / shutdown with no LEDs or frozen at yellow (and the little LED frozen at red).

I feel like I'm going in circles; I've tried:

- 2.37 firmware and 2.41 firmware - both times manually as nothing happened in mSetup when the camera disconnected;
- in-camera formatted (via msetup), and SD Card Formatter formatted: 16GB Kingston card (working, from my 3d printer);
- SD Card Formatter exFAT Amazon 128GB card (worked fine before in the camera);
- SD Card Formatter FAT32 Samsung 32GB (from a phone, known to work);

I'm starting to suspect a hardware issue. Is there anything I can check on the board itself?

 

[TonyM]

I can't think of anything else to try.

I see you posted over at RCG. Hopefully you will get a useful response from them.

 

[thephatmaster]

I can't think of anything else to try.

I see you posted over at RCG. Hopefully you will get a useful response from them.

Hopefully - though I realised that my M1 gets a lot of use, but if it's toast, then I'd better ask those guys for a replacement my toy drone has half a chance of lifting!