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Parts Arrived! Prototype flaws but mostly works.

A project log for DEXT Meteor:

The DEXT Meteor is a powerful and small FPGA computer with a unique OS.

dylan-brophyDylan Brophy 07/21/2018 at 04:570 Comments

The parts for the prototype came about 3 days early from LCSC and EasyEDA!

I don't have a solder stencil yet, so I used my solder paste for the whole board.  I must say I've gotten somewhat good at soldering .5mm pitch ICs, considering only two pins had a joint.  Trick is so simple yet so true: less is more.  Use a tiny bit of paste and it works!

Top of board before being put in my toaster oven

On the flip side, my PCB has a pretty bad error in it:  the SRAM pinout is completely wrong.  When I plugged in the board the 3.3v regulator got hot and the SRAM chip started getting warm.  I had to cut the ground connections to salvage the board.

The completed board before cutting SRAM ground pins, with a few trivial errors

Anyway, I finally connected the board to ISE iMPACT and it recognized the FPGA!  So the board works.  Time to start testing my compiler on real hardware!!

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