General-Purpose SAM4S MCU and Max V CPLD development board

[GarthyD]

So, I've just finished designing and assembling a prototype of a general-purpose SAM4S MCU and Max V CPLD board. 

The board uses a 100-pin SAM4S MCU (plenty of spare GPIOs and peripherals) and a Max V CPLD. It is USB-powered and controllable, and can charge and use a single-cell rechargeable Li-Po battery. The board has a bunch of extras, including: five RGB LEDs, an IR transmitter and IR receiver, NOR flash, a few sensors, and some buttons.

Firstly, a picture of my first assembled protoype board:



Hand-soldered. Took a while! :}

I've also written a software library and some tools to make it easy to work with. It includes an interface library to communicate with the board over USB.

I've written up some pages about my work. Videos included. It can be found here:

http://www.entropicsoftware.com/aie/sat/overview.html

Twenty-second background on me: I'm an experienced software developer, but only a novice when it comes to electronics. The software development side is something that comes easily to me, but I struggle a bit with the electronics side.

A few shoutouts:

- The final power-on LED design was heavily based on MK14's suggestions in this thread: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/power-on-led-design-with-mcu-override/.

- Sadly I didn't end up including the boost converter I was looking at, but I got some a lot of help here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/boost-converter-with-abnormally-high-current-draw/ , which I am very grateful for.

- The test rig I used when building and testing the board used overvoltage protection based heavily on Ian.M's recommendations here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/overvoltage-protection-with-a-twist/ . Without this advice I may have inadvertently fried the board and my test setup.

Thanks to everyone that helped out.

Anyway, I'm weighing up what to do next. If there is enough interest, it might lead to a production run. If you've gone through the pages I've linked above and like what you see, please consider filling out the quick survey that can be found there so I can get an idea as to actual interest. If it's not your kind of thing, that's cool too. Link to the writeup again:

http://www.entropicsoftware.com/aie/sat/overview.html

Happy to discuss the board in any case. I already have a *long* list of changes for the next revision. Any tips, suggestions, input most welcome.

[GarthyD]

Please also feel free to drop me a message directly if you'd like to give feedback- even if the board isn't your sort of thing.