The softstart patch is a circuit designed to circumvent the powering issues that showed up with the 3rd iteration of the SandS motherboard. This circuit is meant to power up the Dogstamp module on the SandS motherboard taking as an input the external power input. This patch was neccesary after discovering that depending on the type of power supply chosen the Dogstamp module would not follow a proper boot-up sequence. Due to the special characteristics of the power supply in our laboratory in Malmo, we were unable of noticing this issue until we sent boards to the partners for them to test.

After the LBL - UNIMI - ARD meeting in Zaragoza at the end of January 2014, we came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to design this kind of solution to make the boards power up properly. This power supply has been incorporated in later versions of the SandS motherboard, however, since we had manufactured a whole series of boards, this patch is needed for not wasting the model 3 of the motherboard.
