So first of all, this isn’t anywhere close to release. It’s just a group discussion that creates prototypes as a byproduct. The first routed board was completed in October or November but there were no RP2350B to buy, and I wasn’t going to buy a full reel of broken silicon under the prerelease program for prototyping if there was a chance they might have a stepping.
There’s a couple threads discussing what people are interested in. I couldn’t find the main one earlier, so posted where you saw it.
We have a current completed PCB prototype with:
- Move RBG CDO up to the 0…32 range so we can use the extra PIO on the buffered Io pins.
- uses I2C DAC to set voltage and current levels instead of PWM (claim 2 pins)
- adds I2C IO expanders for 4 possible values of pull up or pull down (and combinations) assignable per pin
- Add 8MB (?) PSRAM that can be memory mapped for a luxury logic analyzer.
- DFN opamps and other tweaks for space and manufacturability.
- A small circuit to allow the bootloader button to be reset or bootloader depending on press length
Note on this one: all those I2C chips are properly brand name and not cheap! This is a fantasy BOM because the new additions almost double the current BOM cost. It is not cost optimized, but more a luxury board with excessive perks
There is a revision under way with some ruggedizing:
- TVS diodes on all IO for +/- 12 volt maximum tolerance. The part has been smoke tested by @electronic_eel and selected.
- A rather interesting ruggedized power supply that is +/-12 volt tolerant, with a replacement for the back flow switch and a small negative voltage charge pump to control a FET over a wide voltage range. This was also designed by @electronic_eel and you can find a post with a render of the test board for the circuit.
This is where our discussion left off, around the holiday when everyone got busy/was away from keyboard.
At this point I’m very happy because we got a small quantity of rp2350B and can finally spin some REV0 boards. Then we can test it, see what the firmware build out will take, etc. As you can see, this is not a priority project, more a hacker space hobby horse with no actual timeline.
I may attempt to round up the rev7/BP7 threads tomorrow, but I really want to get the IR stuff done as it’s taken 4* as long as I anticipated.