We’ve recently written about ESP32-C3-0.42LCD board with ESP32-C3 wireless microcontroller, a 0.42-inch display, and a Qwicc connector for expansion. But it turns out the developer, 01Space, has also launched an almost identical board, RP2040-0.42LCD, with Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU replacing the ESP32-C3 WiFi and Bluetooth MCU.
RP2040-0.42LCD board specifications:
- SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller at up to 125 MHz, with 264KB SRAM
- Storage – 2 MB SPI flash
- Display – 0.42-inch OLED
- USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming
- Expansion
- Qwiic I2C connector
- 7-pin and 8-pin headers with up to 11x GPIOs, 2x SPI, 2x I2C, 4x ADC, 1x UART, 5V, 3.3V, VBAT, GND
- Misc
- Reset and Boot buttons
- RGB LED, power LED
- Power Supply
- 5V via USB-C port or Vin
- VBAT pin for battery input
- 3.3V regulator with 500mA peak output
- Dimensions – 23.5 x 18 mm
- Weight – About 2.5 grams
The RP2040 board loses WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE connectivity compared to the ESP32-C3 board but does gain one extra I2C and SPI interface. The rest of the specifications are exactly the same as far as I can tell. 01Space provides instructions and Arduino samples for the board on Github with the former relying on the Arduino Core mbed release, as well as Adafruit NeoPixel and u8g2 libraries. The latter needs some modifications that are explained in the Github repo.
RP2040-0.42LCD board is sold on Banggood for $8.99 including shipping., or on Aliexpress for $9.99 plus shipping. If you are only interested in the tiny 0.42-inch display, you can find it on Aliexpress for about $5.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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I couldn’t resist. These are versatile enough, even for debugging it could be nice.
I received them, they’re impressively small (particularly the display). There’s an annoying RGB LED that’s lit at full power with the default demo code. The USB-C features a CDC-ACM tty by default, and can emulate a 128MB flash when resetting to boot mode, whcih exposes a bootloader’s config file. That’s much larger than the 2MB on it, so maybe it pads the output. Reading the flash from USB gives 1 MB/s which is not bad for such a small device and opens perspectives for future projects. I haven’t gone further yet for now.
OLED not LCD!
Why not pay less and get both MCU ?
https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/05/02/lilygo-t-picoc3-board-merges-rp2040-esp32-c3-integrates-color-display/
“with Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU replacing the ESP32-C3 ” he should have went with the ESP32-S3. Then this would not even be a thing. “compared to the ESP32-C3 board but does gain one extra I2C and SPI interface.”
It’s like a super powered thumby console! You might want to give that a review if you liked this, basically the same SOC but with some Gameboy-style packaging.
Any idea what the pin assignments are for the RGB LED?