I placed the order late last night for the PCB!

The PCB design is obviously finished, fully passes the kicad DRC checks, the problems with the footprints were solved.

I’ve decided to go with Seeed Studio’s Fusion PCB service.  This is based on a recommendation from a knowledgeable friend that has been helping me.

So all the SMT parts have been ordered for the prototype PCB.  Once they come in, I’ll be testing the placement of the parts on top of a printed layout to see if the chips/parts match the layout — if there was a package screw up, and so on.

This board was never optimized for cost per se, but here’s what the major components cost:

SMT parts will be ordered soon.  Once they arrive, I’ll double-check the pad design/placement is good, and then order the PCBs!

Everything is coming along swimmingly and I should have a prototype PCB in a few weeks.

So I’m starting to make some progress here, but I still have some troubles with my expansion board prototype.

For the first time, the initial exec-rom-based check passed, and the memory auto-configured.  This happens occasionally on powerup.

Also, memtest is running a quick memory check and passing it with zero errors, but I really think it’s because it’s not doing a comprehensive test.

Troubleshooting is ongoing……….