Over at the plugdata project, we’re looking at supporting the OWL platform with the built-in Heavy compiler/flasher. I can’t seem to find a pinout diagram for the OWL Platform and I’d love to get one to experiment with. The only diagrams I’ve found are for earlier revisions. Is there such a diagram available somewhere for Rev07?
Hey @JoshuaACNewman ,
What kind of experiments do you have in mind exactly?
OWL patches don’t interact with hardware directly. OWL firmware does that, while the patch only communicates with firmware via a shared memory area. For that reason you shouldn’t have to deal with pins and such unless you’re making some kind of custom module based on OWL.
If you want to know which pins are used by existing hardware, you can have a look at its CubeMX project i.e. for Lich it’s here or maybe at the main.h header that CubeMX generated
I’m not sure why they never documented pins on OWL mk2, might be simply due to lack of demand for this. They did document pins for Xibeca which has a different form factor and MCU, more audio channels, but still runs the same OWL firmware.
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The short answer is, yes, it’s for building custom modules.
The longer answer is that our intention with the project is to design toward compatibility for hardware platforms that have good audio capabilities and broad artistic purposes, from finished modules (e.g. Lich, Daisy) and instruments (e.g. Organelle) down to dev boards (Daisy Seed, Owl, Raspberry Pi).
I haven’t been able to figure out precisely what the capabilities of the Owl board are, even though they seem to be quite in line with what we’re trying to target. We’ve got Daisy working now, Critter & Guitari is talking with us about a simple upload process, and the hvcc toolchain of Owl is directly compatible with how we’re already compiling and flashing.
That Lich header file seems like it might be the map I was looking for! Thanks!
Xibeca looks neat, but also doesn’t seem to be available for purchase?
Xibeca boards are currently out of stock due to chip shortage and were supposed to be available later this spring. And a new (pin compatible) version of OWL board is coming soon too. Maybe you can get some better info from @Befaco
Oh, great to know Owl development is ongoing! If it’s the same process to compile for and flash Xibeca, then that’s great news and we’ll watch for its return with great interest.
@Befaco Let us know if you’re interested in getting plugdata flashing the Owl family from within the IDE. We’d love to have your participation!
Correct, patch compilation and flashing process is the same. And the resulting binary is compatible with all OWL devices as it’s hardware independent.
What can be a problem for plugdata is that HVCC that we use is a fork with some additions made before the compiler got abandoned. There was an attempt to switch to the current version of Heavy, but it got stuck in limbo for almost 2 years.
Hi Joshua! Short answer is YES!
Did not knew about plugdata, and its defiently looking beautiful!
AS @antisvin stated, Xibeca has been out of stock for way too much already, but we hope to get new units in Q2 or Q3 this year (fingers crossed!) Also, we are waiting for @mars to become a bit more available to nail down some hardware details.
From Befaco perspective we can help you with hardware so you can do some tests. But development wise, this si the place to be and antisvin and mars your sources of information! 
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I think you’ll find Dreamer is at work integrating your changes already!
I need to update this work. OWL stuff has been merged into HVCC last year, but I didn’t get around to continue the PR.
@JoshuaACNewman this was done over a year ago already 
plugdata integration should be fairly straightforward, since we already have the necessary compiler and other stuff in the toolchain. We just need to add the OWL firmware part and some hooks to the UI with any necessary choices.
Will try to get back to OWL testing and updating the PR soon-ish.
@Befaco I have a Lich already on which I’m doing all my tests.
Hi all, just wondered if there is any news on this? I’d love to be able to use PlugData with my Owl.