So I had the VESC showing power, but not responding to the ST-link programmer. Last week, Jack borrowed some mosfets to build his own VESC, and I lent him my programmer and we took a quick look at mine. Nothing obviously wrong – the STM got power, but didn’t respond, so we left it at “not sure if board or dongle”.

At some point, Jack obviously got his own board running and tested my dongle. He messaged me with the good news that my $8 eBay dongle was just fine, so the ESC was probably … not. “Did you get 2 layer boards printed? Cos it’s a 4 layer design…”

Why yes, Jack, yes I did somehow order 2 layer boards for a 4 layer design. So those middle two layers of connections, probably important.I have re-ordered PCBs in *4* layers, for the latest design. I am slightly pleased that it’s (possibly) not my soldering that was the problem….