The Raspberry Pi Pico is a low-cost, high-performance microcontroller board with flexible digital interfaces. It feature the RP2040 which marks Raspberry Pi's first microcontroller designed in-house. Pico provides minimal (yet flexible) external circuitry to support the RP2040 chip (Flash, crystal, power supplies and decoupling and USB connector). The majority of the RP2040 microcontroller pins are brought to the user IO pins on the left and right edge of the board. Four RP2040 IO are used for internal functions - driving an LED, on-board Switched Mode Power Supply (SMPS) power control and sensing the system voltages.
Pico uses an on-board buck-boost SMPS which is able to generate the required 3.3 volts (to power RP2040 and externalcircuitry) from a wide range of input voltages (~1.8 to 5.5V). This allows significant flexibility in powering the unit from various sources such as a single Lithium-Ion cell, or 3 AA cells in series. Battery chargers can also be very easily integrated with the Pico powerchain. Reprogramming the Pico's flash memory can be done using USB (simply drag and drop a file onto the Pico which appears as a mass storage device) or via the Serial Wire Debug (SWD) port. The SWD port can also be used to interactively debug coderunning on the RP2040
Pico has been designed to use either soldered 0.1" pin-headers (it is one 0.1" pitch wider than a standard 40-pin DIP package) or can be used as a surface mountable "module", as the user IO pins are also castellated. There are SMT pads underneath the USB connector and BOOTSEL button, which allow these signals to be accessed if used as a reflow-soldered SMT module.
Note: This variation comes with a set of male headers pre-soldered to all through-hole vias and a 3 pin debug connector. The spacing remains 2.54mm and breadboard compatible (even more so now with the addition of the male headers).
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Based on 4 ratings:
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The header pins on this board seem to be thicker than on headers I have used on other boards. The result is that when I insert or remove this board from my breadboard I have to use more force and flex the board more than I am comfortable with. If you are considering getting this over the regular pico just for the convenience of not needing to get out your soldering iron; then just get the regular pico and solder on the headers yourself.
Plugged right in to the breadboard. I loaded the micropython bootloader per the instructions and use Thonny to upload and run my programs. I connected a BNO055 and ran micropython code from https://github.com/micropython-IMU/micropython-bno055 I added a display and use this code fromhttps://github.com/peterhinch/micropython-samples/blob/master/README.md#412-quaternions It works and the price for the Pico is sooooo good. There's lots of possibilities with this board.
Bought this to waste extra time and it’s a great kit for anyone interested in learning more about how computers communicate with other objects
I have been a fan of Software Defined Radio for some time. One of the big drawbacks of the current crop of hobby SDRs is the need to use a desktop computer for the signal processing. I recently discovered an open source project that created a stand alone, general coverage, HF receiver based on a PI Pico. Search GitHub for "PicoRX". The external components for the receiver are minimal due to the use of the Pico's internal ADCs and PIO to create a quadrature local oscillator. The entire receiver can be built for less than 20 bucks. The Pi Pico also has a switching power supply that eliminates the need for an external regulator. I can run my PicoRX from a 3 cell battery pack that lasts for weeks. I am amazed by all the power and versatility of this 5 dollar part.