Damn. A lot longer than I wanted, but I honestly forgot about this blog.
So, the PCB arrived in about mid-February, if I'm not mistaken; and it's as gorgeous as you think. I didn't get any pictures of the bare PCB, only after soldering some parts, but the minimum order quantity is 5, therefore I might upload a picture sometime. I first soldered on the Amphenol connectors for the CM5, which was a huge pain, but I managed to get it on with *enough* mechanical strength. Then I did the other basic stuff, like the USB, HDMI, USBC PWR, buttons, and all parts needed for those to work, and thankfully, it worked. Pretty well, actually. I'm surprised that the HDMI signal integrity looks to be completely fine, which means I actually managed to get the impedance matching right. This applies to the USB as well, but that isn't as strict.
Again, it was a great relief that it turned on and had working IO, though the HDMI and USB had some unexpected clearance issues which I fixed by mutilating the USB connector.
Then I soldered on some minor SMD parts and the servo PWM controller, which I even managed to talk to with the CM5 and it could make the servo turn just fine. Then I moved on to the FTS STM32. I purposely ordered two of them, and I'm glad I did, since the first one decided to leave this realm early for whatever reason. Anyway, I set it up with the second one, and right now it's just coded to blink and LED on the dedicated FTS emergency power output, but I'll make some code for it later.
And the 2nd latest development is the sensor-handling STM32F745VET6 and the MS5611 barometer/thermometer, which I managed to get the code working for in about 3 days. I probably could've done it faster by using AI, but did you hear that we've officially entered water bankruptcy? Because of a tool no one asked for. Sure, it's useful sometimes but it's like doing cocaine with an already sedentary lifestyle.
That's basically all I have on the PCB front; though I did already try to solder on the BNO085, but I was having some great troubles with it, and I'm pretty sure it can't survive like... 12 heat gun cycles, so I ordered a new one. Hand-soldering LGA like this is borderline surgery.
Also! I made a website! I got a great deal for the domain name; 10USD for the first two years, and so I made basically a landing page/linktree-esque site for the project at openapollo.space. Go check it out! If it's still up, that is... It will cost 50USD a year after the first two expires. We'll see.
That's all for now, I keep doing these at 3am, I desperately need to work on my sleep schedule.
I'll include some pictures here.
TTZ
