Raspberry Pi Category - Page 19 of 19 - CNX Software

March 11, 2021March 12, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

PiccoloSDR – A Raspberry Pi Pico powered SDR working with GNU Radio

There’s a lot you can do with the tiny Raspberry Pi Pico board, but computer student and radio amateur Luigi Cruz decided to go a step further by making Raspberry Pico RP2040 board work as an SDR compatible with GNU Radio open-source toolkit. The PicoSDR PiccoloSDR project relies on one of the ADC pins from the Raspberry Pi Pico board to sample 8-bit data at around 500 ksps and makes the data available through TCP/IP (emulated via the RNDIS protocol) over the Full Speed USB interface at up to 12 Mbps. As Luis notes applications are limited due to the low bandwidth, but it’s still a fun project. You can see demos with a web-based tone generator, a PWM generator, and actual audio where we see the spectrum chart, scope plot, and FFT plot updated in real-time. He has not released the demo code “officially” just yet, but I can […]

March 2, 2021March 2, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Raspberry Pi RP2040 boards are coming with… HDMI?

We’ve already seen Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU can support VGA output using the microcontroller’s programmable I/O blocks. But yesterday, I saw two upcoming RP2040 boards with an HDMI connector. How is that supposed to work? The first one is Olimex RP2040-PICO-PC that’s indeed like a pico PC board with an HDMI connector for video, a micro SD card for storage, a standard 3.5mm audio jack for speaker or headphone, and a USB host for a keyboard. RP2040-PICO-PC teaser small PC with RP2040-PICO module. Video, Audio, SD-card, UEXT, I2C, Lipo battery, Reset, USB pwr, USB host for keyboard, Debug TxRx, SWD for JTAG debug #rp2040 #raspberrypi #circuitpython #retrogames pic.twitter.com/str79xsMkm — OLIMEX Ltd (@Olimex) March 1, 2021 There are some I/O headers for good measure, what looks like a 3-pin UART console header, a 2-pin header for LiPo battery, as well as a reset button. The second board, dcelectr DC2040, follows the […]

March 1, 2021September 13, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

A neat way to add a reset button to Raspberry Pi Pico

The Raspberry Pi Pico is a nice little board, but if you program in C language, you’d need to disconnect the micro USB cable each time you’d like to flash the UF2 firmware. That’s not convenient and could damage your board over time. The Raspberry Pi Foundation even decided to write a blog post explaining how to add a reset button to your Raspberry Pi Pico using a breadboard circuit. Here’s what it looks like. That works but you may want to use that breadboard for another circuit, so the reset button takes space. Another solution is to program with a Raspberry Pi board and use SWD mode to upload code using the debug port, instead of using mass storage (BOOTSEL) mode. I’ve also found out that most baseboards for the Pico board will include a reset button. But this morning, I’ve come across another solution that looks pretty neat. […]

February 24, 2021February 24, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Kiwikit Raspberry Pi Pico baseboard takes off-the-shelf modules

While it’s possible to use Raspberry Pi Pico with a breadboard or Veroboard, we’ve seen the benefits of inserting the board into a baseboard such as Maker Pi Pico providing LEDs, a MicroSD card, audio output, and the ability to add ESP-01 WiFi module or well as up to two Grove expansion modules. Hammond Pearce decided to design his own Raspberry Pi Pico baseboard with Kiwikit board supporting some of the off-the-shelf modules and interfaces he commonly uses. Kiwikit key features and specifications Supported module – Raspberry Pi Pico Storage – 8-pin header for AT24C08 EEPROM up to 1KB Display – Connector for I2C SSD1306 OLED display On-board sensor – LDR (light-dependent resistor aka photoresistor) connected over analog input I/Os SPI header working for instance, with SD card modules as shown in the photo above. I2C header compatible with MP-6050 accelerometer/gyroscope modules Header with 2x ADCs with optional pull-ups that […]

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021 by Saumitra Jagdale - 9 Comments

Fuzix Unix-like operating system ported to Raspberry Pi Pico and ESP8266

The Raspberry Pi Pico is not compatible with Linux, but now supports another Unix-like operating system known as Fuzix. Alan Cox’s Fuzix is a Unix-like operating system for older devices with less performance capacity. David Given’s two recent posts have brought to the attention about the operating system’s compatibility with ESP8266 MCU and Raspberry Pi Pico. Fuzix operating system has a kernel which is the central core of the system. Also, it has a C compiler and a set of core applications similar to the UNIX filesystem. The Raspberry Pi Pico port comes with many benefits like a well-structured Unix filesystem with its compatibility for SD cards through the SPI interface. Hence, supporting the Fuzix operating system. The full set of Fuzix binaries is available through a serial console to UART0. Porting Fuzix to ESP8266 The post on “Porting Fuzix to the ESP8266” addresses the MCU’s support for the Fuzix […]

February 22, 2021January 31, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Maker Pi Pico STEM board mini review with CircuitPython

In my early list of third-party Raspberry Pi RP2040 boards, I shortly mentioned Cytron Maker Pi Pico baseboard for Raspberry Pi Pico that exposes all pins via female headers, includes LEDs for all GPIOs pin, six Grove connectors, three user push-buttons, one RGB LED, a piezo buzzer, an audio jack, a MicroSD card, and an ESP-01 socket to add WiFi connectivity. The beta version sold for $5, and at the time I missed that included Raspberry Pi Pico board as well, so basically you got a free baseboard. The Malaysian company has now sent me a review sample to play around with, so let’s have a closer at the hardware and code samples for the board. Maker Pi Pico Unboxing and Specifications I received the board in Cytron package together with a pinout diagram for Raspberry Pi Pico, and we can see the latter is already soldered to Maker Pi […]

February 5, 2021 by Saumitra Jagdale - 12 Comments

Raspberry Pi Pico Gets supports for Rust, RT-Thread OS and FreeRTOS

Raspberry Pi Pico Rust RT-Thread FreeRTOS

In January end, we saw the launch of Raspberry Pi Pico equipped with an RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller working up to 133 MHz with official support for MicroPython and C. In this feature, we will be discussing the Raspberry Pi Pico’s flexible software support compatible with RP2040 MCU, apart from the MicroPython, C/C++, and upcoming Arduino IDE software support. We will specifically be focusing on Rust, RT-Thread OS, and FreeRTOS support for Raspberry Pi Pico. Rust Code Running on Raspberry Pi Pico Rust language is considered fast, reliable, and secure when it comes to IoT gateways. It also opens up the option for writing extremely low-level code, such as operating system kernels or microcontroller applications. Porting Rust with RP2040 for working with Raspberry Pi Pico was seen in Jonathan Pallant’s Twitter Feed. The RP2040 comes with an external QSPI flash. The internal mask-ROM reads the programs from the external flash […]

January 21, 2021March 3, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 43 Comments

$4 Raspberry Pi Pico board features RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ MCU

The Raspberry Pi Foundation introduced the Linux-capable Raspberry Pi board in 2012 to teach programming and computers. Since then, the company has introduced models with faster processors, more memory, faster interfaces, culminating with the launch of Raspberry Pi 4 in 2019. The board also comes with a 40-pin header to teach electronics, but relying on a Linux SBC to blink a LED, gather data from sensors, or controlling servos is a bit over the top. So the Raspberry Pi Foundation decided to create their own MCU board called Raspberry Pi Pico powered by RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller designed in-house by the foundation. Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller Before we look at the board, let’s check out RP2040 specifications highlights: Core – Dual Cortex M0+ cores up to 133 MHz (48MHz default) Memory – 264 kB of embedded SRAM in 6 banks Peripherals 30 multifunction GPIO 6 dedicated IO for SPI Flash […]