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Topic starter
2021-01-22 3:45 pm
I've been watching all the announcements on the Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040 boards and microcontroller. This should be better for non WiFi/BT designs than even the Xiao. It's $4 or $5 with headers. It's fast and has plenty of memory so CircuitPython/MicroPython should work along with the normal IDEs like Arduion and PIO.
I watched the Adafruit announcement and they will be doing their own RP2040 board in a Feather form factor which mean STEMMA QT I2C bus connections that make sensors so easy to use. Also LiPoly battery charging circuit and connector.
I've ordered a couple of the Raspberry boards to play with.
If your code won't compile, have another glass of bourbon. Eventual the problem will be solved.
titch_stewart and Sean451 reacted
2021-01-22 4:13 pm
Someone else beat you to the punch yesterday! 🤣
SteveG
Topic starter
2021-01-22 4:16 pm
Someone else beat you to the punch yesterday! 🤣
great minds think alike. Any MCU that I'm playing with that is cheaper than the Microbrew I'm drinking is a good value.
If your code won't compile, have another glass of bourbon. Eventual the problem will be solved.
Topic starter
2021-01-22 4:19 pm
Where do you find it for $4? Amazon has it at $14.
--->Sean
adafruit.com
2 x Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040 with Loose Headers[ID:4883] = $10.00
I ordered 2 along with some other items I needed. This was my first Adafruit order since, Wednesday. Maybe I have a compulsion. 😀
If your code won't compile, have another glass of bourbon. Eventual the problem will be solved.
Sean451 reacted
2021-01-22 4:22 pm
I found it on the Raspi site, but it was 4 GBP not USD and you needed to add headers possibly and then shipping from the UK. The $13.99 one I saw on Amazon (still needed headers) was from a garage business, maybe, called Bicool. And delivery was a couple weeks out. If they aren't already sold out the Raspi site might make more sense.
SteveG
Sean451 reacted
Topic starter
2021-01-22 4:26 pm
Adafruit.com is a US based official Raspberrypi.org distributor. The have them without headers for $4 US plus shipping. So I'm getting a bunch of stuff shipped for ~$9 via USPS Priority mail.
If your code won't compile, have another glass of bourbon. Eventual the problem will be solved.
Sean451 reacted
2021-01-22 4:36 pm
Just order 2 each myself from Adafruit! Seems to be a better deal than directly from the RasPi site. Time will tell as I chose USPS First Class shipping. I'll try to remember to post again when they arrive!
SteveG
Sean451 reacted
2021-01-22 6:10 pm
With 260 Kbytes of ram all of my programs can run out of ram instead of flash.
Only downside is no hardware floating point. What is the max frequency that it runs at ?
i
Sean451 reacted
Topic starter
2021-01-22 6:45 pm
With 260 Kbytes of ram all of my programs can run out of ram instead of flash.
Only downside is no hardware floating point. What is the max frequency that it runs at ?
i
RP2040 Chip features:
Dual ARM Cortex-M0+ @ 133MHz
264kB on-chip SRAM in six independent banks
Support for up to 16MB of off-chip Flash memory via dedicated QSPI bus
DMA controller
Fully-connected AHB crossbar
Interpolator and integer divider peripherals
On-chip programmable LDO to generate core voltage
2 on-chip PLLs to generate USB and core clocks
30 GPIO pins, 4 of which can be used as analog inputs
Peripherals
2 UARTs
2 SPI controllers
2 I2C controllers
16 PWM channels
USB 1.1 controller and PHY, with host and device support
8 PIO state machines
board specific:
While the RP2040 has lots of onboard RAM (264KB), it does not have built-in FLASH memory. Instead, that is provided by the external QSPI flash chip. On this board there is 2MB, which is shared between the program it's running and any file storage used by MicroPython or CircuitPython. When using C/C++ you get the whole flash memory, if using Python you will have about 1 MB remaining for code, files, images, fonts, etc.
If your code won't compile, have another glass of bourbon. Eventual the problem will be solved.
Sean451 reacted
2021-01-22 9:50 pm
Thanks for that info. Pretty darn fast @ 133 MHz
All that for Five bucks and shipping ? Crazy.
The PIO state machines would be new to me. Sounds like programmable logic ?
I already have on the list for this year learning more about using the ESP32 and STM32 series of micros.
Sean451 reacted
2021-01-23 10:38 am
Have 2 Pico arriving in the post so will be most interested in new video.Cost as much to post than to buy)
This post was modified 3 years ago by PRRH
Topic starter
2021-01-23 11:28 am
Thanks for that info. Pretty darn fast @ 133 MHz
All that for Five bucks and shipping ? Crazy.
The PIO state machines would be new to me. Sounds like programmable logic ?
I already have on the list for this year learning more about using the ESP32 and STM32 series of micros.
I watched a video conference call last night with Scott the chief CircuitPython developer for Adafruit about the new RP2040 chip and most of the time was on the PIO state machines. It's a 9 instruction 32 word machine that you can program from within your CircuitPython program. One of the examples for it's need was Neopixel LED drivers. The Neopixel state machine only needed 4 instructions. Currently all the MCUs have to use NMI to stop the CPUs when they are working the 800K timing to get Neopixels to work exactly. The PIO state machine would allow precise high speed timing without stopping the cpu. In my mind it like the difference between using Hardware PWM vs. Software PWM, but for high-speed stuff.
If your code won't compile, have another glass of bourbon. Eventual the problem will be solved.
2021-01-23 7:50 pm
Hi Everyone
I have moved this discussion out of "Suggested Content", as it actually was a duplicate - it was suggested and accepted yesterday!
However, I had second thoughts about putting it in the "Approved Content" section (which I originally did when I saw it) as it's a great discussion and I want to let it continue.
I have 5 of these on the way from BuyaPi.ca which should be arriving on Wednesday, according to Canada Post.
I also have an order I just placed with Pimoroni in the UK which includes one more Pico (they only let you order one). It also has:
- A Pico Decker, which is a quad expander
- A Pico Omnibus, which is a dual expander
- A Pico Scroll Pack, a matrix of white LEDs
- A Pico Display Pack, which is an IPS LCD screen
- Four Pico Proto boards, small prototyping boards for the Pico
That order will probably take a while to get here. I'm also on a waiting list for their RP2040 board.
I also have the book that Raspberry Pi published and have downloaded all of the documentation (there is a lot of it). And I've been looking at the examples Pimoroni has on their libraries Github.
As soon as I can I'll be putting out a video and article about the Pico and RP2040.
😎
Bill
"Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window." — Steve Wozniak
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