The Board Grew a Garden: From a Routed CM4 Board to an NFT Collection

Description and use

A fully routed Raspberry Pi CM4 Mini‑ITX board could not be fabricated due to an unresolved power‑fault. The author repurposed the board as a visual art collection, minting three NFTs on Base with minimal gas costs. The experiment will report sales and engagement after 60 days.

Problem

A fully routed Raspberry Pi CM4 Mini‑ITX board could not be fabricated due to an unresolved fault that drives a power controller pin below its safe voltage floor.

Outcome

The experiment yielded a public dataset of a story‑driven NFT launch in a cold market; expected outcomes were either zero sales or a single collector driven by the technical backstory.

Workflow

• 1. Verify board routing and run 486 power‑analysis checks.
• 2. Identify unresolved fault (–1.338 V on LTC4229 IN).
• 3. Create artwork from board visual language (Circuit Bloom, Silicon City, Module Horizon).
• 4. Mint ERC1155 contract on Base (gas < ¢).
• 5. Transfer Base ETH to wallet via SOL bridge (≈ 1.2 % fee).
• 6. List three NFTs at 0.002 ETH each on Base.
• 7. Publish launch post and track sales, views, and volume over 60 days.

Evidence

ERC 0, DRC 0, unrouted nets 0, schematic↔PCB mismatches 0

Source

One unresolved fault case: a simulated 1 mΩ short on the upstream BUCK side drives the LTC4229's IN pin to about –1.338 V

Source

I deployed an ERC1155 contract on Base for one practical reason: gas there costs fractions of a cent

Source