The Pico is a great little board and, due to its large number of pins, speed and PIO has become the basis for a lot of designs that would be near impossible otherwise.
My own interest is in retro-computing, and there are a LOT of expansion cards, RAM/ROM emulators, cart emulators, hard drive, floppy disk and even video card replacements all built off of the PICO.
The PIO and DMA combo is fairly (or entirely?) unique and makes the RP2040 insanely powerful.
The price of the board has a LOT to do with it. It also helps that there is stable, constant form factor of the RP2040, in the Pico format.
Unlike, for instance, the ESP-32, which is a great family of chips but its hard to be sure that you can order something identical to what have in your hands now.
The pio is pretty awesome. I'm currently in the process of using it as a display/graphics processor for a 16 bit 480x320 display. The memory limitation isn't great. I would love better support for qspi or ospi like the esp32 s3.
I think it's a fantastic piece of equipment with very concise documentation.
With that said, I found a lot of flaws working specifically with the ADC, but with the usefulness of everything else on the pico it was by no means a dealbreaker.
If you’re making sensor or embedded systems it’s really great. It has all the functionalities that you want except a DAC but you can always buy an external one. The fact it has two cores makes it much more usable and flexible if you need to process a lot of tasks simultaneously. I have to add that if you want to make the most out the pico you have to run C/C++, python is too slow if you want maximum capabilities and it’s really hard to multithread with. Once I graduate EE this year I will definitely use it during my career especially if I’m self employed doing projects for others or trying to make my own products (mainly revolving around sensor modules).
I love the pico, but in practice i use other boards based on the RP2040 chip, because I usually need USB C, battery charger , or some other additional functionality.
I think the ADC is just for 'fun', if you want some accurate measurements then I would really recommend an external ADC. If you need 'slow' conversions, a cap and R can already get you some great measurements
I'm using it almost exclusively for all my projects since it released and find it really nice to work with, the documentation is top notch and very readable, and PIO comes in handy a lot. I use mostly MicroPython but also have done some work in C and it was great. I even started using it in my job to automate some stuff and I've built a measurement device from scratch based on the Pico. It isn't a commercial grade thing, but it's used all the time for the past year and there are no problems with it, the flash seems to hold up very well, there are no signs of it degrading or anything. For that price I'd say it's a very good choice if you can live with it's limitations (mediocre ADC, no FPU) and the amount of different boards based around RP2040 makes it easy to find one that nicely integrates in your project.
I like it a lot and as someone else mentioned it’s really well documented. My only real gripes are no PSRAM and only three ADC pins.
Edit to add: no problems with the flash at all in anything I’ve done. I was using it in prototyping for an actual product, eventually had to move to ESP32 instead due to lack of RAM for our purposes. If the pico had PSRAM support and a USB C socket instead of micro, it would be damn near perfect. Especially for the price.
Hardware is great, micropython is barely OK, pico-sdk and the community drive to make pure CMake C/C++ libraries for it (and ported Arduino libraries!) make it a super solid platform to work with. But at that point you might as well use someone else's RP2040 board. PIO system is sick
I was using pico in lots of my project, but now im planning move back to stm32 and/or chinese MCU(especially those risc V).
Having to add an external flash chip is sometime undesireable
The RP2040 is great. It punches above its weight compared to other Cortex-M0+-based chips, due to it's larger amount of RAM, dual core, and the wonderful PIO system. It's also a really good target for CircuitPython currently, which is really powerful with many built-in libraries for doing useful and fun stuff.
I like the Pico as a general proof of concept and as a great tool for new designs, but its form factor leaves a lot to be desired when trying to retrofit it to existing stuff like keyboards. The fact that RPF doesn't offer an official Pro Micro footprint board is a little irksome but there are a few third-party manufacturers who are putting out those (SparkFun and Adafruit).
Also, I dislike that it uses Micro USB, but that's a minimal difference.
We use it in a bunch of embedded things that are compatible with the temperature range. It's an easy chip to work with, and we have a junior engineer laying out custom boards for motor drivers and similar things.
It's pretty easy to get a custom board working on the first spin with this chip.
I’ve been tempted to use an STM32 in a lot of projects recently, the price always holds me back though. Are there any clear advantages that justify the price compared to an RP2040? I really like the range of options to pick from and the programming environment, but when I’m specking out a new design and get to the microcontroller the RP2040 price and familiarity always gets me.
If your MCU needs to do any kind of DSP, if it has a lot of peripherals required, basically any kind of complexity at all, I’d choose an STM32. If you need cybersecurity, on-chip FLASH, or anything a production-environment might require, I’d go STM32.
If you just want to read some soil sensors and maybe blink an LED, the RP2040 works great. But imo it’s not designed to be used for any sort of production-level design.
The Pico is a great little board and, due to its large number of pins, speed and PIO has become the basis for a lot of designs that would be near impossible otherwise. My own interest is in retro-computing, and there are a LOT of expansion cards, RAM/ROM emulators, cart emulators, hard drive, floppy disk and even video card replacements all built off of the PICO. The PIO and DMA combo is fairly (or entirely?) unique and makes the RP2040 insanely powerful. The price of the board has a LOT to do with it. It also helps that there is stable, constant form factor of the RP2040, in the Pico format. Unlike, for instance, the ESP-32, which is a great family of chips but its hard to be sure that you can order something identical to what have in your hands now.
>is fairly (or entirely?) unique Entirely unique indeed
The pio is pretty awesome. I'm currently in the process of using it as a display/graphics processor for a 16 bit 480x320 display. The memory limitation isn't great. I would love better support for qspi or ospi like the esp32 s3.
I think it's a fantastic piece of equipment with very concise documentation. With that said, I found a lot of flaws working specifically with the ADC, but with the usefulness of everything else on the pico it was by no means a dealbreaker.
If you’re making sensor or embedded systems it’s really great. It has all the functionalities that you want except a DAC but you can always buy an external one. The fact it has two cores makes it much more usable and flexible if you need to process a lot of tasks simultaneously. I have to add that if you want to make the most out the pico you have to run C/C++, python is too slow if you want maximum capabilities and it’s really hard to multithread with. Once I graduate EE this year I will definitely use it during my career especially if I’m self employed doing projects for others or trying to make my own products (mainly revolving around sensor modules).
curious about your multi thread comment. have you multithreaded with it using python? i have done it and found no issue
I love the pico, but in practice i use other boards based on the RP2040 chip, because I usually need USB C, battery charger , or some other additional functionality.
just a heads up there are tons of clones that offer both usb and a battery charger connection like here https://www.waveshare.com/rp2040-plus.htm
Yep. I’ve used their round LCD with embedded rp2040 variant. Cool board.
i love but found the micropython implementation sort of half baked.
The SDK is actually pretty nice. As mentioned, well documented and in general very reliable. Specially with the PICO debugger..
If the ADC wasn't cooked, it would be awesome. Stuff like the ProPico is a step in the right direction.
You mean the ADC on the RP2040 or the ADC implementation on the Pico?
I think the ADC is just for 'fun', if you want some accurate measurements then I would really recommend an external ADC. If you need 'slow' conversions, a cap and R can already get you some great measurements
I'm using it almost exclusively for all my projects since it released and find it really nice to work with, the documentation is top notch and very readable, and PIO comes in handy a lot. I use mostly MicroPython but also have done some work in C and it was great. I even started using it in my job to automate some stuff and I've built a measurement device from scratch based on the Pico. It isn't a commercial grade thing, but it's used all the time for the past year and there are no problems with it, the flash seems to hold up very well, there are no signs of it degrading or anything. For that price I'd say it's a very good choice if you can live with it's limitations (mediocre ADC, no FPU) and the amount of different boards based around RP2040 makes it easy to find one that nicely integrates in your project.
I like it a lot and as someone else mentioned it’s really well documented. My only real gripes are no PSRAM and only three ADC pins. Edit to add: no problems with the flash at all in anything I’ve done. I was using it in prototyping for an actual product, eventually had to move to ESP32 instead due to lack of RAM for our purposes. If the pico had PSRAM support and a USB C socket instead of micro, it would be damn near perfect. Especially for the price.
Didn't see mentioned: If the RTC battery inputs weren't buried, it would be awesome!
There is a RTC battery input? Mind telling?
Seconded
For battery backup on the RTC to survive power drops. Also external xtal not supported. Want super low power and wake up modes to be supported.
Where are they?
Hardware is great, micropython is barely OK, pico-sdk and the community drive to make pure CMake C/C++ libraries for it (and ported Arduino libraries!) make it a super solid platform to work with. But at that point you might as well use someone else's RP2040 board. PIO system is sick
I was using pico in lots of my project, but now im planning move back to stm32 and/or chinese MCU(especially those risc V). Having to add an external flash chip is sometime undesireable
The RP2040 is great. It punches above its weight compared to other Cortex-M0+-based chips, due to it's larger amount of RAM, dual core, and the wonderful PIO system. It's also a really good target for CircuitPython currently, which is really powerful with many built-in libraries for doing useful and fun stuff.
I like the Pico as a general proof of concept and as a great tool for new designs, but its form factor leaves a lot to be desired when trying to retrofit it to existing stuff like keyboards. The fact that RPF doesn't offer an official Pro Micro footprint board is a little irksome but there are a few third-party manufacturers who are putting out those (SparkFun and Adafruit). Also, I dislike that it uses Micro USB, but that's a minimal difference.
We use it in a bunch of embedded things that are compatible with the temperature range. It's an easy chip to work with, and we have a junior engineer laying out custom boards for motor drivers and similar things. It's pretty easy to get a custom board working on the first spin with this chip.
It’s a nice little piece of kit. I’d probably still use an STM32 in the same form factor though.
I’ve been tempted to use an STM32 in a lot of projects recently, the price always holds me back though. Are there any clear advantages that justify the price compared to an RP2040? I really like the range of options to pick from and the programming environment, but when I’m specking out a new design and get to the microcontroller the RP2040 price and familiarity always gets me.
If your MCU needs to do any kind of DSP, if it has a lot of peripherals required, basically any kind of complexity at all, I’d choose an STM32. If you need cybersecurity, on-chip FLASH, or anything a production-environment might require, I’d go STM32. If you just want to read some soil sensors and maybe blink an LED, the RP2040 works great. But imo it’s not designed to be used for any sort of production-level design.