{"id":20974,"date":"2021-04-01T17:10:59","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T16:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.recantha.co.uk\/blog\/?p=20974"},"modified":"2021-04-02T10:25:16","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T09:25:16","slug":"trying-out-a-raspberry-pi-pico-carrier-and-experimentation-board-the-pico-360","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.recantha.co.uk\/blog\/?p=20974","title":{"rendered":"Trying out a Raspberry Pi Pico carrier and experimentation board – the Pico 360"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It’s always nice when something new arrives in the post and it’s unexpected! Andrew Gale from PocketMoneyTronics<\/a> has done great things in the past with his subscription-based soldering kits. This time, he has created a carrier board for the Raspberry Pi Pico which helps you to get going on coding with simple components. It is called the Pico 360<\/strong> and it comes as a solder-it-together-yourself kit.<\/p>\n

TL;DR – if you want one, it’s \u00a33.60 (not a typo!) for the kit (not including the Pico itself) and it’s available over on Etsy<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kit contents<\/h2>\n

The components are as follows:<\/p>\n

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    \n
  • The PCB<\/li>\n
  • 6 red LEDs<\/li>\n
  • 1 yellow LED<\/li>\n
  • 1 green LED<\/li>\n
  • Resistors for all those LEDs<\/li>\n
  • 2 momentary buttons\/switches<\/li>\n
  • 1 piezo buzzer<\/li>\n
  • 1 trim potentiometer<\/li>\n
  • 2 sets of female header pins (for the Pico to plug into)<\/li>\n
  • 1 set of male header pins (to breakout some extra pins)<\/li>\n
  • 3 sticky nubs to go on the bottom<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The genius move in this case is to include 5 pads which can be attached to with crocodile clips, making this excellent for education where re-use is as important as anything else.<\/p>\n

    Putting it together<\/h2>\n

    Soldering it together was simple and is best done, in my opinion, in the following order (from lowest height to highest height):<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Resistors<\/li>\n
    • Buttons<\/li>\n
    • Potentiometer<\/li>\n
    • Buzzer<\/li>\n
    • LEDs<\/li>\n
    • Male header<\/li>\n
    • Female headers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      The components are all through-hole, so it should be easy for someone with even “beginner” soldering skills. The only thing I did find was that some of the pads are quite close together. I only had one “oops” and needed a solder sucker. That’s about average for me, anyway!<\/p>\n

      Once soldered together, I plugged in a Raspberry Pi Pico (which I had already soldered male headers onto).<\/p>\n

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      Example code and video<\/h2>\n

      To my delight, I was able to get all of the included components working straight-off-the-bat by using CircuitPython<\/a> (which happened to be loaded onto the Pico). My code is here on GitHub as a Gist<\/a> and you can see the code in action in the video below. If you want a MicroPython demo program, you can find that on Andrew’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n