Zaitronics Nexus RP2350 LiPo is a Raspberry Pi RP2350 board similar to the Raspberry Pi Pico 2, but with various improvements, namely support for LiPo batteries, a 16MB SPI flash, a USB-C port, and a Qwiic/STEMMA QT expansion connector.
The Australian company says that apart from those improvements, the board has the same size and pinout as the original Raspberry Pi Pico 2, and if there’s enough interest, a Nexus RP2350 LiPo W board adding WiFi and Bluetooth may also be designed in the future.
Nexus RP2350 LiPo specifications:
- SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2350A
- CPU
- Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone, Secure boot OR
- Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz
- Either two cores can be used.
- Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM
- Security
- 8KB of anti-fuse OTP for key storage
- Secure boot (Arm only)
- SHA-256 acceleration
- Hardware TRNG
- Fast glitch detectors.
- Package – QFN-60
- CPU
- Storage – 16 MB on-board QSPI flash
- USB – USB Type-C 1.1 host/device connector for power and programming
- Expansion
- 2x 20-pin headers and castellated edges with
- 26x GPIO
- 2x UART
- 2x SPI controllers
- 2x I2C controllers
- 16x PWM channels
- 4x ADC
- 3x PIO blocks, 12x PIO (Programmable IO) state machines
- Qwiic/STEMMA QT connector
- 2x 20-pin headers and castellated edges with
- Debugging – 3-pin HST SWD debug connector
- Misc
- Boot and Reset buttons
- Charging status LED
- Programmable red LED
- Power Supply
- 5V via USB-C port
- 1.8 to 5.5V via VS pin
- 2-pin JST-PH connector for 3.7V LiPo batteries, onboard charging at 200mA; automatically charges when USB is connected and switches to battery power when unplugged.
- Dimensions – 51 x 21 mm
- Temperature Range – -20°C to +85°C
The board is compatible with MicroPython, CircuitPython, C/C++, and more, basically anything that works on the Raspberry Pi Pico 2, since it’s software/firmware compatible. It’s said to be especially useful for applications requiring audio processing, robotics, control systems, and portable electronics.
It’s not the first Raspberry Pi RP2350 board with LiPo battery support, and alternatives include Adafruit Feather RP2350 with HSTX port, Datanoise PicoADK v2 music synthesizer board, Solder Party’s RP2350 Stamp / Stamp XL module, Challenger+ RP2350 WiFi6/BLE5 board, and a few others. All those boards add some extra features, and the Nexus RP2350 Lipo board is closer to the original Pico 2 design.
Zaitronics is taking pre-orders for the board for $18.00 AUD (about $12 US) on their online store, and it’s also listed on Ebay Australia for $22.50 AUD ($14.7 US)
Thanks to Ethan for the tip.
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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