Ocean Board

August 17, 2026 · 11 hours, one sitting

I finished Ocean Board today.

Ocean Board is a custom devboard I designed around the RP2040 — my own take on what a Pico-style board should look like, built for the stuff I actually want to do with it instead of whatever the off-the-shelf version assumes. I sat down and just didn’t stop until it was done. Eleven hours later, it’s real.

Why I built this

I wanted a board that was mine — something I understood down to every trace and part choice, not just another Pico clone I bought off a shelf. RP2040s are everywhere, but building my own version meant I got to decide exactly what went on it and why.

What’s actually on it

• RP2040 — the chip doing all the thinking
• W25Q128 — 16MB of external flash, because I didn’t want to be tight on storage later
• TLV62568 buck converter — keeping power clean and regulated
• Two 16-pin GPIO headers (left and right) so I’ve got breakout room to actually build things on top of this
• BOOTSEL and RESET buttons — small, but you don’t appreciate them until you’re stuck without one
• Micro-USB for power and programming
• The usual supporting cast of caps, an inductor, and a couple of precision resistors making sure everything plays nice

The 11 hours

Honestly it was one of those sessions where I sat down expecting to make a dent and just… didn’t stop. Nailing down the BOM, double-checking footprints, assembly, and then the moment that actually matters — powering it on for the first time and finding out if eleven hours of work was going to boot or smoke.

(This is the part I want you to fill in — what actually went wrong, what almost didn’t work, the moment it powered on, anything you had to re-solder or debug. That’s the stuff that makes a devlog feel real instead of a spec sheet.)

What’s next

• Flash something basic on it — blink an LED, get USB serial talking
• Push the power regulation a bit to see how it holds up under load
• Write up the GPIO pinout properly so I’m not guessing later
• Think about a v2 — enclosure, more flash, maybe a different connector

Notes to self

Eleven hours is a long single sitting — next time I should actually track where the time goes. Also already have a BOM scaled up for a 10-board batch if I ever want to build more than one of these.

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More devlogs coming as I start actually building on top of this thing.