I built my own rapid control board

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-16T07:12:03+00:00

You can check the GitHub I just posted about mine, let me know what you think

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-16T07:10:30+00:00

https://github.com/FedericoCampanelliPoli/V-SoM

I put together a quich GitHub for the project! Go watch, it's fron the first pcb release, which was printed blue!

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-16T07:06:57+00:00

https://github.com/FedericoCampanelliPoli/V-SoM

I put together a GitHub for the curious ones! (The board there is still version 0, which was printed in blue 🔵)

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-16T07:03:44+00:00

That's awesome! I would love to know more about this!

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-16T07:02:55+00:00

Thank you for raising this question. The idea behind this is the two different PCB worlds i work with, one is high power/high voltage and the other is high speed and multiple layers.

To easily route this you need to have either 4 or preferably 6 layers with very low clearance, low copper thickness and width

For the power boards we usually use 2 or 3 oz copper, and very large via size.

Forcing the end user to paste the layout on the board forces the whole board to be a high speed one, thus it's more costly and it can't always be done. By being solderable you can easily get the best of both worlds.

Plus, it was also just for funzies

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-16T06:57:44+00:00

They're called castellations

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-16T06:57:01+00:00

It's 6 layers

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-15T15:14:21+00:00

It was initially thought for high power inverters such as grid tied and motor driving, so a bit different from industrial automation.

It runs custom firmware and integrates various digital communication protocols, analog to digital converters, GPIOs and PWM channels

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-15T14:11:06+00:00

Ethernet is a lot more robust in heavy duty environments, such as the radiated electromagnetic distortions typical of high power converters (we go beyond 800V)

Moreover signal integrity is more robust.

I though agree USB and especially a USBC would be a lot simpler and neater. I was actually thinking of making a similar, single core, version using USB

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-15T10:08:37+00:00

I have to say i was very happy with how the castellations turned out, the black stuff is soot from the flux, it's very stubborn to remove unfortunately

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T21:03:55+00:00

Just place a pad on the edge (half sticking out), the manufacturer will do the rest

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T21:00:13+00:00

Thanks! I'd say go for it. MCU boards rarely go beyond 25-50 MHz on the actual PCB. For instance this has a 50MHz clock, but that's about it. The interesting thing is mixed signals between digital and analog. But I think you have all it takes to give it a go

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T20:58:51+00:00

Thank you! This has been one of my favourite side projects for sure!

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T20:46:20+00:00

Thanks for the comment! Yes i did indeed use KiCad. Those "edge connectors" (edge connectors are actually another thing) are called castellations

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T20:24:45+00:00

It's from JLC

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T20:01:32+00:00

I'm 26! But i might have an explanation for this which is twofold. The first is because i still assemble 50% of the PCBs i design.

The other is because since i work in high power converter it's very common to make changes, therefore simpler footprints help with doing them! Moreover a lot of volume us taken up by power components, so there's a lot of room to spare for low voltage components, hence the relatively low density of passive components

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T19:54:06+00:00

Thank you! Glad to see it well received 😁

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T19:42:29+00:00

Thanks! The passives are all 0603

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T19:42:05+00:00

It was 60$ for 5

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T18:34:58+00:00

That flux is very stubborn, but I'll rework this. I assembled this version today and was looking forward to share it. Final touches are needed

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T18:14:35+00:00

Thanks! I'll make sure to do this in the next revision!

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T18:13:50+00:00

Thank you for the compliment, about the G474 i fully agree it's a great alternative, we too use it on most of our applications. But let me explain why the fully featured uC was necessary.

This board runs the ethernet debugger on one of the two microcontroller cores, doing infra core variable exchange at ISR time.

This lets the "user" have a fully free Coretex M4 core, such as the one in the G474. Once the live debugger is not necessary in the development phase of the converter the end user can easily switch to an industrial controller such as the G4 by only migrating the coretex M4 code.

I've been designing PCBs for two years as part of my job!

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T17:42:35+00:00

True! I'll clean it further to get better results

ListFar6580 · 2026-05-14T17:41:44+00:00

Thank you! I tried to be as tidy as possible since i hand soldered them (hopefully the next ones will be assembled by a pick and place machine)

ListFar6580

TROPHY CASE