Guru
Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United KingdomPosts: 8877
| Posted: 08:37pm 26 Apr 2026 |
My reasoning about PSRAM was that it's nice to have, and if Raspberry Pi had a module that had it then I'd use it. However they don't. That means that any design using modules rather than the home-unsolderable bare chip is totally dependent on a third party supplier and I want to get away from that if possible. The other modules aren't as important as they are long-established Chinese ones and are unlikely to disappear in the forseeable future.
There are 4 USB ports on board (2 on the front and 2 on the back). You could piggy back an external hub from one of those or, if you short out a diode and the Pico can work that way, you also have direct access to the Pico's USB connection via the mini USB socket.
As I said, this is basically a cheap quick and dirty. If you have the money to get JLCPCB to assemble better boards then that's fine, but you need to be able to sell or use the extra ones because of the minimum order.
I could easily have used one of the RP2350 modules, and I still might, but that wasn't the target this time. It would certainly need a bigger PCB and possibly a bigger case. The modules are more expensive and there is a single manufacturer for each one - none of them as big as Raspberry Pi. There are all sorts of things I *could* have done, but this one is a compromise. Note that it is based on the Pico 2, so any device that is pin compatible and has the HSTX should work, even if it isn't currently available. :)