I'd like to know what the pinout of the connector on the bottom is...


Claerly 8 pins, one must be VCC and another GND, so we have 6 data pins. Six pins is enoug for a lot of possibilities, and I assume that the mating module (Power or LCD brick) has it's own embedded SoC, so we're in SoC to SoC communication land enabling some potentially nasty things. For example it's entirely possible that DJI does some key exchange to validate that a genuine DJI accessory is plugged in, etc.

I'm interested in this from a maker perspective, it would be really cool to make custom accessories that this can mount to, and knowing the pinout and that DJI made engineering choices to allow for potential tinkering here is necessary.

Q: Will you provide the pinout?

Q: Are any forms of encryption or key exchange between the camera module and the accessory used for the purpose of validating that the camera is interfacing with a DJI accessory (basically asking if this was engineered to only work with DJI stuff)?

Q: If advanced communication is done, say I2C, UART, USB, etc. will DJI provide a basic API? Doing so would really show a commitment to the maker community and would be deeply appreciated.

Full disclosure, I am a former GoPro firmware engineer who did influence the Open GoPro standard. I now work for Google.

That would be cool to know indeed.
So far they have not been very open apart from their SDK.

Montfrooij Posted at 10-29 11:33
That would be cool to know indeed.
So far they have not been very open apart from their SDK.

I'm not beyond trying to reverse engineer it once I get the camera, but I would much prefer they work with their community on this. Even simple reverse engineering efforts can be very painful.

codysmith105 Posted at 10-29 11:47
I'm not beyond trying to reverse engineer it once I get the camera, but I would much prefer they work with their community on this. Even simple reverse engineering efforts can be very painful.

They are pretty closed source.
Everything can change, but so far all those lights are red.

Montfrooij Posted at 10-29 11:50
They are pretty closed source.
Everything can change, but so far all those lights are red.

So be it, I'll warm up my logic analyzer

codysmith105 Posted at 10-29 11:52
So be it, I'll warm up my logic analyzer

My assumption is that this will give you more right now.
However, I am not working for DJI, so who knows.

I was wondering about the pinout options myself. If I could find a way to wire up my own sd card slot and not have to use a module to have extra storage, etc.  But like has been mentioned, I'm sure there maybe some sort of authentication of genuine device at play.

Someone posted a link to a cage for the device which has a usb power connector for the camera unit.  So that much was known before launch.  It seems to me that the means to separate the 2nd screen from the camera would have some uses and for that you wouldn't need to know the function of each pin.  I'm imagining some kind of frame which would make the 2nd screen like the flip up screen on a normal camera so you could hold the camera waist high and frame the shot by looking down at the second screen which would be horizontal.  You read it here first...

fansfe82067d Posted at 10-29 13:00
Someone posted a link to a cage for the device which has a usb power connector for the camera unit.  So that much was known before launch.  It seems to me that the means to separate the 2nd screen from the camera would have some uses and for that you wouldn't need to know the function of each pin.  I'm imagining some kind of frame which would make the 2nd screen like the flip up screen on a normal camera so you could hold the camera waist high and frame the shot by looking down at the second screen which would be horizontal.  You read it here first...

Link to the cage? Could be useful, USB 2.0 is a 4 pin standard including VCC and GND, if a "dumb" accessory like this is out there it would give us half of the pinout for the cost of just the accessory.

codysmith105 Posted at 10-29 17:18
Link to the cage? Could be useful, USB 2.0 is a 4 pin standard including VCC and GND, if a "dumb" accessory like this is out there it would give us half of the pinout for the cost of just the accessory.

The cage isn’t available yet. It’s made by Tilta. Should be able to Google it as I can’t remember the website. It is posted on here though, just or search for tilta for action 2

Tilta cage post


Found it

codysmith105 Posted at 10-29 17:18
Link to the cage? Could be useful, USB 2.0 is a 4 pin standard including VCC and GND, if a "dumb" accessory like this is out there it would give us half of the pinout for the cost of just the accessory.

If you have either the battery module or the screen module, presumably you should detect the power on two of the pins, which only leaves you 6 to guess....

JodyB Posted at 10-29 17:56
Tilta cage post

Nice! Albeit I can't seem to find a place to buy this anywhere.

As for finding VCC and GND (power and ground), yes those two pins should be easy enough to sort out. Not to mention that they are likely on opposing corners if DJI engineers are good at all. They put those pins on opposing corners to guarantee a good connection of the entire connector in order for the camera to be able to power on, also putting some space between them helps to prevent shorting.

Please post your progress,   curious how they communicate.

Please share your final results.  

I will probably do a little investigating on this myself after I get mine and get to play with it a little bit. I don't have but a multi-meter to test with so I maybe limited as to what I can find with that.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5192931