Raspberry Pi Pico Accessories

Posted on Tue 25 January 2022 in reviews, setups

Raspberry Pi Trading are the UK based company behind the development of the RP2040 microcontroller chip. They released a board called the 'Pi Pico', which includes this microcontroller in January of 2021.

The boards are designed for low cost (around around €5) and mass production. Each one comes in a blister tape pack.

It's possible to program the Pico with C and MicroPython (a version of Python language, optimized to run on a microcontroller).

The market for these boards seems to be education, prototyping and electronics hobbyists.

I've had a Pico for a couple of months, and using online instructions I've made the following accessories...

  1. VGA Interface

Picture of Raspberry Pi Pico VGA interface

The RP2040 has a feature called 'Programmable Input/Output', or 'PIO' which gives the Pico to be ability to produce a VGA signal.

  1. SD Card Reader

SD Card interface

Here is the micro-sd card read installed in the breadboard. (The jumper wires are not connected) SD Card Installed

  1. Reset Button.

Sources:

Robin Grosset :Raspberry Pi Pico VGA video output using only resistors

Daniel Perron :Use SDCard with MicroPython on Raspberry Pi Pico

Raspberry Pi Pi Pico Microcontroller