DIY OWL2/3 Digital Board

#1

I have managed to get OWL2/3 PCB and schematic file from following link.

I generated gerber file from GAGLE PCB design software and placed order for samples PCB to JLCPCB.

Hope this PCB design file is latest and working one.

As per my understanding OLW2 & OWL3 uses same PCB only difference is CPU.
OWL2 uses STM32F439ZGT6 and OWL3 uses STM32F756ZGT6.
Please correct me if I am wrong.

Now my point is STM32F439ZGT6 & STM32F756ZGT6 chips are very expensive and also not available in our market, But I have managed to arrange STM32F429ZGT6 (OWL2) and STM32F746ZGT6 (OWL3) instead, from our market.

Now my question is how to build Openware for STM32F429ZGT6 (OWL2) and STM32F746ZGT6 (OWL3) instead chip STM32F439ZGT6 & STM32F756ZGT6.

Thanks & regards
jags

#2

Oh I totally forgot that Martin published that repo. However, OWL3 is using a different MCU - STM32H743ZGT6, you can probably find some examples in the projects from Openware repo (i.e. Lich3, Magus3). This repo is what used for building firmware (MidiBoot is the bootloader project with separate version for OWL1/2/3 boards, Hardware directory is for openocd configs and linker scripts, Source is the firmware source dir and other directory are device specific projects)

The F7 must be from a prototype board that was considered for OWL3, but it ended up to be not worth the effort (compared to F4, the F7 MCU is too hot, expensive and not fast enough to justify being used). I can tell you that there was no finished RebelTechnology devices that used F7, it only was used in prototypes.

OWL3 board would be pin compatible with OWL2, but I’d expect that some changes could be required for a different MCU. So I’m not sure why there’s no info about it.

A few related projects to check out:

  1. Genius - this is similar to OWL3, but redesigned to fit in a more narrow module (10HP instead of 12HP). It was only used as a digital part of Genius module.
  2. Noctua - was told it’s a polyphonic VCO, uses PCM3168 codec. It looks like first version was based on OWL2, second on OWL3 or a custom board with its MCU? This never became a commercial product too.
  3. Xibeca - this is another H7 board - using STM32H750 and PCM3168. This is used in Befaco AC/DC and also there’s a dev kit.