Raspberry Pico - First look. - observations........

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jph
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Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2020 12:50 pm
Location: Somewhere over the rainbow..

Raspberry Pico - First look. - observations........

#1 Post by jph »

Here is a first look at the Pi Pico board.
A couple of images to judge the footprint.

Here are my thoughts so far. (I am limiting these to the very first observations and thoughts, not in depth reviews etc !) - I am focussing on the hardware - NOT the capabilities which are looking amazing - but bearing in mind the board is really designed for 'one off' projects. - not as a general purpose board.

It is considerably larger than I thought - although, considering the pin count it should have been obvious - my bad.
There are images here alongside a NANO to give you a scale.

The pinout lettering is on the UNDERSIDE of the board which seems to me to be a complete cock up :shock: I think this is a big mistake. Hopefully the next revision will amend that - but, for reasons of experience - I very much doubt that -. 'BOHICA'

Raspberry state that there are GND pins spaced relatively evenly, and these can be identified by a square ended 'pad' .. hmm. yes, it can be seen if you look carefully. However, once a connector of any type is fitted that is covered up.

Use for AM - capabilities - will be superb I am sure, however, I have definite concerns with new (to hardware) users wiring up the board due to the pin layout labelling. I can see some considerable 'support' issues................................

For Arduino IDE, it is looking reasonably good so far (although early in the development stage) - with the above caveats for board markings. You may well need to use some 'Mbed' commands for reassigning pin functions if needed. The documentation is vague at the moment, but will improve I am sure. Altogether - interesting and promising.

Final thoughts -

board markings are - IMHO - total 'sh!te' :( I can see a hell of a lot of confusion for non hardware proficient users trying to hook things up in AM ...

It is larger than I thought (although as I said above - I should have seen that in simple pin count - doh ;) )

It uses a Micro USB connector !!! ???? I think this is not the best choice personally as the MINI connector as per NANO would have been FAR more reliable.
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Joe. CISSP, MSc.

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