PIM550, Pico Explorer Base

Price:
US$33.62
PIM550
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The PIM550 is an electronic adventure playground packed with physical computing goodies including an LCD screen, motor drivers, a mini breadboard, and much more!

Pico Explorer lets you play with circuits, build science experiments, prototype tiny robots and inventions and, most importantly, Figure Out How It All Works.

We've incorporated tinkering essentials like a mini breadboard, motor drivers, ADC inputs, a built-in speaker, general-purpose inputs/outputs, switches, and two Breakout Garden slots (Please note that C++/MicroPython driver support for breakouts is still a work in progress - scroll down for a list of ones that are currently compatible).

We've also managed to fit in a vibrant 240x240 IPS LCD screen with four tactile buttons so you can easily monitor and control what your project is doing. It's all wrapped up in a nice, sturdy baseboard with a pleasingly compact footprint that won't involve nearly as many trailing wires as if you were experimenting with a traditional breadboard setup. Boo wires, yay Pico Explorer!

Our comprehensive MicroPython and C++ libraries will let you control every aspect of the board like a digital maestro. It's great for beginners, advanced users, and people who awkwardly sit somewhere in the middle and cannot be placed into a simple demographic bucket - we know who you are.

We've really crammed all the functionality we could into this board - quite a few of us were lucky enough to have all-in-one electronic circuit kits when we were small and so we jumped at the chance to put together a bang-up-to-date version.

Raspberry Pi Pico and breadboard-friendly components like LEDs, jumper wires and extra buttons are not included

Your Pico will need to have male headers soldered to it (with the pins pointing downwards) to attach to our add-on boards.

Features

  • Pico Explorer Base
  • Piezo speaker
  • 1.54" IPS LCD screen (240 x 240)
  • Four user-controllable switches
  • Two Half-Bridge motor drivers (with over-current indicator LED)
  • Easy access GPIO and ADC pin Headers
  • Two Breakout Garden I2C sockets*
  • Mini breadboard
  • Rubber feet
  • Compatible with Raspberry Pi Pico.
  • No soldering required (as long as your Pico has header pins attached).
  • Dimensions: approx 117mm x 63mm x 20mm (L x W x H, assembled)
  • C/C++ and MicroPython libraries
  • Schematic

Pinout

Getting started

The landing area on Pico Explorer Base will show you which way round to plug in your Pico - just match up the USB port with the markings on the board.

The easiest way to get started with our Pico add-ons is by downloading and copying our custom MicroPython firmware to your Pico, it includes all the libraries you'll need.

You can find C examples here and MicroPython examples here.

Pico Breakout Compatibility

We're in the process of writing C++ / MicroPython drivers for as many of our breakouts as possible - here's a list of the I2C breakouts that are currently supported. If you download the most recent version of our custom MicroPython uf2, it will have all these drivers included. 

  • LED Dot Matrix Breakout
  • LTR-559 Light & Proximity Sensor Breakout
  • 11x7 LED Matrix Breakout
  • 5x5 RGB Matrix Breakout
  • SGP30 Air Quality Sensor Breakout
  • Trackball Breakout
  • AS7262 6-channel Spectral Sensor (Spectrometer) Breakout
  • RGB Encoder Breakout
  • RGB Potentiometer Breakout
  • IO Expander Breakout
  • MICS6814 3-in-1 Gas Sensor Breakout (CO, NO2, NH3)
  • MSA301 3DoF Motion Sensor Breakout
  • RV3028 Real-Time Clock (RTC) Breakout

If your breakout's not yet on the list, you might find Pico-compatible drivers for it in CircuitPython! 

About Raspberry Pi Pico

Raspberry Pi Pico is a flexible, low cost microcontroller development board from the folks at Raspberry Pi, based on their very own chip - the RP2040. It's easily programmable over USB with C/C++ or MicroPython, and ideal for using in all sorts of physical computing projects, devices and inventions - we're so excited to see what you make with it!

We've called our Pico-sized add-ons packs, as they're designed to attach to the back of your Pico as if it were wearing a very stylish backpack (or a miniature jet pack, if you prefer). We've also got Pico bases (larger add-on boards with a space to mount your Pico on top) and some other boards that let you do interesting hackerly things like using multiple packs at once

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