NotBlackMagic

My main project for 2026 (and onward if it goes well): The PlumeN6 HD: - STM32N6 MCU - MIPI-CSI interface - MJPEG and H.264 encoder - USB-HS - 1000Base-T1 Eth. - ESP32-C5 (maybe) Planned to be used first in either a custom small drone (Andorinha) or a MobED style robot (Lince).

@aussetg It is! For now I have no specific plan for the NPU but I want to use it yes.

@NotBlackMagic1 Pretty darn powerful MCU. You’re planning on using the neural accelerator for something ?

Power supply (hand) soldered and tested, all working on the second board as well! MCU also gets picked up by debugger so good progress! #pluman6 #stm32n6 #mcu #embedded #drone

@raulizahi I'm being careful with assembling the board, only one part at a time and check if it works. First prototype (but second board...) so many things can go and be wrong

@NotBlackMagic1 Are the empty slots for future enhancements or are you progressively stuffing the board with additional functionality?

@TheCameronKramr Thanks! For first revision prototypes I prefer to make only one at a time and also only soldering each functional module and test at a time. Keeping possible hardware error damages contained :) But yes, only because I hand assemble them

@NotBlackMagic1 Best of luck! When I get boards made, I like to have 4 completely assembled, but I'll only test on 2 to I learn as much as possible. Recently zapped the two, and I learned what I did while redesigning. Can bodge it, so now I have two working. Ymmv if you hand assemble tho.

Here goes round 2! New MCU and Memories arrived to make a new board after killing the previous ones MCU... Safer to make a whole new board then to try to replace the broken BGA MCU. #stm32n6 #pluman6 #hardware #debug

More information on the PlumaN6 project can be found here: notblackmagic.com/projects/pluma…

Taking on a new side project: Together with my SO we are creating custom 3D printed embroidery hoops under Tiny Project.iles! If you know someone that does embroidery or cross-stitch share it with them: STLs: @tiny_projects" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">makerworld.com/en/@tiny_proje…

First casualty of the #PlumaN6 project.. Had a power wire touch something that it shouldn't, killing the MCU.. Almost all power rails were reading short until MCU was removed so it is confirmed dead... RIP Time for a break until I can solder a new board #embedded #debug #stm32n6

The next driver development focus for the #PlumaN6: The USB-HS interface, yes the #STM32N6 has a full 480 Mbps HS interface! A major improvement over there previous series and invaluable for streaming high data rate video frames or similar! #robotics #drones #uav

I have now FileX running and R/W to the SD card. Now comes the question which driver/peripheral to explore and implement next:

Also updating the project page on my website periodically: notblackmagic.com/projects/pluma…

Base SD Card driver is now complete: Reads full specs from SD card and configures the SDMMC peripheral appropriately (max 4-bit and 50 MHz). IDMA (SDMMC specific DMA) also working! On a C10 class uSD card I'm getting: Read: 5 MByte/s Write: 19 MByte/s #PlumaN6 #stm32n6 #embedded

Progress Update on #PlumaN6: SD card driver is coming together, I can now connect and read all essential SD card information and change the SDMMC peripheral to match the specs of the SD card (up to 4-bit width and sadly 50MHz speed). Read and write is also progressing. #stm32n6

Button failure analysis: Had two SMD buttons fail on the #PlumaN6, next to each other. De-soldering and opening them up showed the likely cause. Solder flux on the contact pads. Very likely due to reworks and hand soldering next to them. Interesting find for sure! #embedded #diy

@DigitalPalace2 Yes that! I really liked that one, was a nice balance between the now HAL and LL. Not to much abstraction. And now they started to make a HAL2... What a mess

@NotBlackMagic1 if I'm not mistakes , it was called SPL , standard peripheral library , it was magnificent , it even had driver for ethernet and CANbus , but current LL library doesn't have CANbus and Ethernet

Short update, the SDMMC driver skeleton is mostly implemented and working. Can read basic registers from a uSD card. This in standard single wire mode for now. Next to implement the SD card driver level! Doing the whole firmware and drivers in low level (no HAL) and using C++.

@DigitalPalace2 Crazy.... For that stuff I always used the LL, or before the one they had before the LL and HAL. The HAL is to universal so a lot of extra code for each step...

@NotBlackMagic1 one time i was seeing weird timing for exti interrupt to trigger a spi read , the delay from irq to spi ( measured the spi clock ) was about 800 to 900 us , i changed it to spi register read and bypassed the HAL exti callback , it went down to 10 us

@DigitalPalace2 Damn that's good to hear that there is such a performance boost to get! I never worked much with the HAL, always preferred to use the LL. But also never worked much with complex drivers

@NotBlackMagic1 legend , I've seen at least 2X to 3X performance boost when i write my own SPI or NAND driver at register level, the HAL is ok but is very laggy

@yacineMTB @blind_via Give me some time and I may test that!

@blind_via literally just that. get me an stm32n6 with an fpga that takes two cameras into one mipi csi lane you should be able to solve this

I pissed off i2cjak so much that he unfollow me. HAHAHA I can't wait to ratio his follower count 😈 Follow me if you want to see really good PCB Tips and discussion

@tomfleet It is working, probably it has a connection only below the IC. I'll rework it for sure, nice find! Had a few like that already.

@NotBlackMagic1 Might be the lighting, but is that pin 1 ok?

With the HyperBus devices working at 100MHz, moving to the next peripheral to implement for the #PlumaN6 controller: uSD Card (SDMMC)! In theory it should support UHS-I but due to a hardware mistake will be limited to standard speed (50 MHz and 4-bit width).