maybe two dead parts?

The quickest test is if you can get an ammeter on the power supply. I purchased a cheap USB power monitor which is very convenient for checking on the current draw of the chip. I'm seeing what I assume to be a normal ~220mA current, but I have to go back and check if that was for just the Caravel board or the Caravel board + Nucleo. For the record, I have a thermocouple on a multimeter, not a FLIR, but I'm reading 22.9 degrees C.