The Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico W are based on the fast, efficient, and low-cost dual-core ARM CortexM0+ RP2040 microcontroller chip running at up to 133MHz and sporting 264KB of SRAM and 2MB of Flash memory. Besides spacious memory, the Pico and PicoW offer many GPIO pins, and popular peripheral interface modules like ADC, SPI, I²C, UART, PWM, timing modules, a hardware debug interface, and an internal temperature sensor.
The Raspberry Pi Pico W additionally includes an on-board Infineon CYW43439 Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chipset. At the time of writing this book, the Bluetooth firmware was not yet available. Wi-Fi is however fully supported at 2.4GHz using the 802.11b/g/n protocols.
This book is an introduction to using the RaspberryPi PicoW in conjunction with the MicroPython programming language. The Thonny development environment (IDE) is used in all of the 60+ working and tested projects covering the following topics:
– Installing the MicroPython on Raspberry Pi Pico using a RaspberryPi or a PC
– Timer interrupts and external interrupts
– Analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) projects
– Using the internal temperature sensor and external sensor chips
– Using the internal temperature sensor and external temperature sensor chips
– Datalogging projects
– PWM, UART, I²C, and SPI projects
– Using Bluetooth, WiFi, and apps to communicate with smartphones
– Digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) projects
All projects are tried & tested. They can be implemented on both the RaspberryPi Pico and RaspberryPi PicoW, although the Wi-Fi-based subjects will run on the PicoW only. Basic programming and electronics experience are required to follow the projects. Brief descriptions, block diagrams, detailed circuit diagrams, and full MicroPython program listings are given for all projects. The full program listings of all the projects discussed in the book may be downloaded free of charge from www.elektor.com/20335.
