It is alway cool to solder up a modul, plug it in and see that it is working – ok half a modul.
Had to use the old CAN Hub as I have not soldered up any of the new main boards yet. I urgently need the NMEA2000 interface as a friend have problems in hes boat – so need to muck up a CAN sniffer asap. I am still a bit shocked over how small these modules are. The old SWD connector works fine, but it collided with the modul connector so had to cut it in half – think it’s time to make some new ones – these have worked fine for years.
The MCU is STM32H503CB because it was small, had a lot of IO/power and dead cheap. Costing ca 2.- USD in quantity of 25, but I also have STM32H523Cx that only cost a few more cents and have much more Flash/SRAM – the later is pin compatible with H503 so I can upgrade if I run out of Flash/SRAM. Alwasy nice to have that option, but 128K Flash is quite a lot since build-in bootloader on this is available on the modul interface.
modul 1 on
Kind of fun to connect to one main board abd ask it to switch on a module – I really like the concept I have here where mainboard can restart modules.
As for Flash I have 128Kb and I am not so concerned, but I accept that with a CAN port and support of CANopen and J1939 I might need the 256Kb or 512Kb options in STM32H523Cx – not sure. It is only a 50 cent difference in price delivered at my home from Digikey. That said H503 is one of the most formiddable MCU’s I have used. Running at 250Mhz with loads of IO and a M33 core it is very capable. H5’s can’t compete with H723 that I use on the mainboard in speed – specially since H723 have 64bit double support, but H503 is still far faster than a majority of MCU’s. It is a combination of speed, flash, ram and cost on the H5 series that is awesome.