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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Ah Ha ....
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hitsware2 Guru  Joined: 03/08/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 735 |
....Built in SD ! my site |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8297 |
It's a nice thing to have in some ways but it breaks the design concept of the Pico as an embedded controller. That has no pins so that it can be soldered directly onto a carrier board. That idea's gone. Form over function, I'm afraid. And as for the price... Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2466 |
why not design an 'under board' that is the same size as the PICO, and carries a micro SD socket and a 3v3 LDO linear regulator ON THE BOTTOM SIDE. use the thinnest PCB material that is readily available, and sandwich it against the PICO's underside, between the PICO and the 2 rows of pin headers that most folks seem to attach. the linear regulator is to replace the switchmode regulator on the PICO, providing electrically quieter operation. you could also have an optional 'out-rigger' next to the RUN pin that carries a reset switch. cheers, rob :-) Edited 2021-11-04 22:49 by robert.rozee |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8297 |
One of the beauties of the Pico design is that it's actually pretty "clean". Almost all the pins are wired out so you can do things like that to it - add options as and when you need them. There's no real need to design a new board for the RP2040 unless it's for a specific purpose (although I think a Reset button should have been included from the start). I can understand the minimalist designs with far less I/O, but only on space/weight grounds. Taking stuff away is fine, adding unnecessary stuff isn't. Adding SD cards, wifi modules etc. should all be done as add-ons most of the time. Gilding the lily breaks the elegance of the original design. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| hitsware2 Guru Joined: 03/08/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 735 |
If the SD card will enable me to update the firmware without loosing my routines , or to move routines between boards , it will be worth any loss of ' purity ' my site |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8297 |
Since firmware updates will get increasingly rarer you can always use XMODEM SEND and XMODEM RECEIVE to back up & recover your routines. If your PicoMite is mounted on a PCB or something you could use a temporary SD card for backup as I mentioned above. There's no real need to have a SD card socket on the same PCB as the RP2400, although it might be useful for regular usage such as data logging or storing a lot of images. Of course, you pays your money and takes your choice. Your priorities may differ. :) Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| scruss Regular Member  Joined: 20/09/2021 Location: CanadaPosts: 95 |
The form is to fit in with the very widely used Feather (Adafruit) / Thing Plus (SparkFun) form factor. There are many processor options from several vendors, and there are hundreds of compatible add-on boards ("wings"). All of them share the same form factor, plus: * 3.3 V logic only * built-in 3.7 V LiPo battery power/charger * newer ones have a QwiiC / Stemma QT quick-connect I2C socket * all take power from USB, with the newest boards having USB C. There's no requirement for the designs to be surface-mountable. If you want a really minimal RP2040 board, you can buy the bare RP2040 chips for about US $1 each. |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8297 |
Oh, I realize that. It's an easy design to add stuff to. However, with the exception of USB-C, all of the above are easy to add to a standard Pico if you use an add-on pcb. As we've seen though, once you start to add extra on-board stuff there's no control over which pins are used for it. At least making it an addition to the standard Pico ensures that the basic compatibility is maintained. At the very least it has to be documented if it's an add-on. Apparently RPi didn''t use USB-C or include a Reset button because of cost. In particular, a USB-C connector is a lot more expensive than uUSB. Anyway, these variations will sell. That's the most important thing for those producing them. Their aim isn't to keep compatibility, that's just a nice thing to have if you can keep it cheap enough. I doubt very much if specific versions of MMBasic will be produced for every variation of the RP2040 platform though. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| scruss Regular Member Joined: 20/09/2021 Location: CanadaPosts: 95 |
Why would you need to produce a different version of the interpreter for different pinouts? They've all got a subset of the same pins. Or is this because MMBasic uses its own special names for pins? Adding a LiPo charger is not easy in the slightest. Wrong charge rate for the wrong cell, things catch fire. I'm looking forward to the first RP2040 board in Arduino Uno format. That would be quite gloriously wrong. |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8297 |
Some of the pins are used on-board and aren't wired out. They have special functions on the Pico. There's no reason why other pins can't be used, but MMBasic has been designed around the Pico arrangement. The pin numbers don't matter providing you always use the GPn reference. GP29 - analogue input to measure VSYS/3 GP25 - Output to LED GP24 - VBUS sense - high if VBUS present GP23 - Output to control the SMPS switching mode You mess with these at your peril. Even using GP25 to control a WS LED will screw up programs that expect a simple on/off led. Wiring out GP29 as ADC3 messes up a program expecting to use it as a low battery monitor. Now we have a problem with GP21 being hard wired to the BOOTSEL button on one non-RPi board. If you want to write a MMBasic program that's compatible with that board you have to avoid using it. Adding a general rechargeable battery system is documented in the RPi Pico Datasheet. It's not specific to a LiPo system, the user should know how to do that. It's nothing to do with Raspberry Pi. It's actually very easy (and safe) to do with protected cells and proper charger modules. Edited 2021-11-05 05:07 by Mixtel90 Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| hitsware2 Guru Joined: 03/08/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 735 |
Me Too ... my site |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8297 |
So make one... :) You could probably just drop a PicoMite into the space between the Uno connectors on a Proto Shield with a bit of creative copper carving and some wire links. You'd be 3 analogue ports short, of course. I've just been looking at a similar shield and it looks pretty easy to do, soldering the PicoMite directly to pads underneath the shield. Would probably have to drill some away where the pads are underneath the Pico though. Edited 2021-11-05 06:53 by Mixtel90 Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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Poppy Guru Joined: 25/07/2019 Location: GermanyPosts: 486 |
I use those from Keystudio ... for my Duinomites.   Andre ... such a GURU? | ||||
| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8297 |
Those would probably be better, Poppy. There's less clutter on them. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| Poppy Guru Joined: 25/07/2019 Location: GermanyPosts: 486 |
Exactly, that is why I simply prefer these. Andre ... such a GURU? | ||||
| hitsware2 Guru Joined: 03/08/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 735 |
Back to these : The real question is when I click F1 if it says "file saved" or "no SD" my site |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8297 |
Compare the schematic with that of the Pico. They have probably allocated different pins somewhere. You *may* be able to make it work by setting up OPTION SDCARD with the right pins and you may not. "File Saved" when you press F1 means that the program has been copied into a special area of flash on the PicoMite. It has nothing to do with the SD. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| hitsware2 Guru Joined: 03/08/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 735 |
Right .... If I type in "save" I get: Error : SDcard not configured my site |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8297 |
SAVE "filename" is only for the SD card. You have set it up first. If you are going to set up system SPI pins then use OPTION SYSTEM SPI CLKpin, MOSIpin, MISOpin OPTION SDCARD CSpin This is the best approach if the SPI is shard among devices. It must use hardware SPI pins. If you don't set up a system SPI then you can use OPTION SDCARD CSpin, CLKpin, MOSIpin, MISOpin This can use any pins, they don't have to be hardware SPI but I don't think you can have other devices on the same pins. Obviously you'll need to know what pins have been connected to the SD on that board. Try this: OPTION SDCARD GP9, GP14, GP12, GP15 Edited 2021-11-06 05:18 by Mixtel90 Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| hitsware2 Guru Joined: 03/08/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 735 |
I don't see it here ? my site |
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