Raspberry Pi Pico: 10 Things You Might Not Know

#Pico #PiPico #RaspberryPiPico
In this video, we take a look at 10 Things You Might Not Know about the new $4 Microcontroller from the team over at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. We'll take a look at using the Pico as a USB Device for Machine Learning, as well as compare the specs of the Pico to the Apollo 11 Guidance Computer.
SunFounder Pi Pico Kit (Sponsored): amzn.to/3PtsjE1
SunFounder Pico 4WD Car Kit (Sponsored): amzn.to/3cjnv63
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00:00 - Introduction
00:08 - RP2040
00:24 - Machine Learning
00:55 - USB
01:20 - Python & C/C++
01:36 - Cost to Develop
02:13 - Debugging
02:35 - Low Power
03:06 - Temperature Sensor + Real-Time Clock
03:24 - Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect
03:58 - To the Moon?
04:26 - Outro
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Hi,
I'm Ryan Gaudion, a technology creator and entrepreneur. I have a passion for all things STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) and motivation to share the wonders of these topics with the up and coming pioneers of our future. My aim is to show you the potential of technology and encourage many into a future career in STEM subjects.
Instagram - @ryan_gaudion
Website - www.everybitelectronics.co.uk

[@RyanGaudion]

👀 For more details, take a look online: gaudion.dev/blog/raspberry-pi-pico-10-things-you-did-not-know

[@glennleader8880]

What I really liked about this video was that Ryan went right to the point. No fluff, no filler. Subscribed.

[@RyanGaudion]

Thank you for the kind words and the sub too 👍🏼

[@kenh8265]

Great presentation Ryan, I find the fact that the £3.60 Pico is massively superior to the Apollo guidance computer in every regard somewhat scary and goes some way to explain how current rockets can land back on earth vertically on a small landing pad for re-use!

[@RyanGaudion]

Thank you for your comment👍 I've got to agree with you - very scary 😅

[@wcg66]

My guess would be that the Pico is more powerful than the CPUs in most home computers up until the Pentium era.

[@elektron2kim666]

The Apollo computer was a calculator, level 2.

[@brunoais]

4:20 You can also consider that the pico is almost 50 times more (computational) power than the GameBoy advance! Or 40 times more powerful than the [Nintendo] NES

[@RyanGaudion]

Love this comparison - I never thought to compare it to old game consoles

[@alexvids9232]

@VoidField101x drink the cool aid. rofl

[@eternaldoorman5228]

F'ing awesome video. I didn't know any of this before!

[@PeteVanDemark]

Lots of interesting new info. Thanks!

[@abymohanan9403]

Thank you so much for this video

[@MrDanielPare]

Holly Pie, The Pi Zero can consume 100 Mega What ? at 2:50 Must be a mistake, but a funny one. Very nice presentation of the Pi Zero.

[@JLCPCB]

Great video Ryan! 🙂

[@tav9755]

Good videao, mate. 10 new things learned. Glad i watched. Usually I skip vids like „10 things you did wrong when washing up your dishes“. Usually click bait.

[@RyanGaudion]

🤣Glad you enjoyed it 👍🏼

[@notsure6683]

Thanks for the educational video. I knew about most of this stuff, but there was some information that I learned from watching.

[@RyanGaudion]

Awesome - thanks for your comment 👍🏼

[@smyrtgyz]

Thank you for sharing your time with us.

[@RyanGaudion]

My pleasure!

[@Solstice42]

Nicely done - only knew two or three of these factoids, so thanks!

[@RyanGaudion]

Glad you enjoyed it! 👍

[@newcooldiscoveries5711]

Great job Ryan! Liked, Subscribed and looking forward to watching more of your videos.

[@RyanGaudion]

Thank you - Glad you enjoyed - new videos are currently being written - what style/topics would you prefer?

[@alexvids9232]

thanks!

[@prof1math]

Thanks Great video very informative

[@RyanGaudion]

Thank you 👍🏼

[@RyanGaudion]

Hi All, thank you for watching! Let me know in the comments below what other Raspberry Pi Pico related video you'd like to see.

[@nikidimitrow]

Hi Ryan, can you make some video tutorials for Pico and tensorflow?

[@RyanGaudion]

I'll add it to the backlog - thank you for the suggestion 👍🏼

[@RyanGaudion]

😂🤣

[@emreay9577]

Thanks for all the theoretically information about pico. Could you please make some videos about how practically we can use our pico as usb keyboard & mouse?

[@RyanGaudion]

Thanks for your comment. It's definitely on my list - still trying to work out the best/easiest way to do it

[@michael.a.covington]

My first impression is that this is a ridiculously large amount of CPU power to use for simple things -- but it only costs $4 -- and here's an analogy. Suppose a blacksmith from 150 years ago were brought to a modern machine shop. He'd think we were terribly wasteful, using metals that were a lot stronger than needed, and parts that were a lot more precisely made than necessary. But that's modern technology. And it's the same way with microcontrollers. Often the lowest total cost is to use a CPU vastly more powerful than strictly necessary. It makes development easier!

[@RyanGaudion]

I like your analogy here - got to agree that a CPU that powerful will only be fully used for a few small exceptions

[@evertspies3345]

Granted that the pico has much more computing power than that of the Apollo 11 but why so much ram. If they could do the job with little ram why do they need so much ram now. Has coding now become too much of a high level language where in the past a lower more compact language like assembler, bypassing the huge interpreters used today. Maybe thats why they need the faster processors to run through all that code.

[@michael.a.covington]

@@evertspies3345 Exactly. To save work for the programmers, because that's the expensive part, at least in a one-off or small-production-run project.

[@evertspies3345]

@Love made in Japan Yes I can believe that, I have never liked Python although a popular programming language among hobbyists, also having to many overheads. Not far from Basic. C++ has become one of the better languages especially in micro controllers. Its a far cry from the day when we hand assembled code for the Z80 for the then popular Spectrum computer. Optimizing code to get Space Invaders to fit into the 1k Ram. Having said all that I am grateful for the technology. Arduino and Raspberry Pi has taught many coding. Be it only to print Hello World or Blinking a led.

[@AndersJackson]

The pico can be reset by connecting the RUN pin to ground instead of removing and then connecting the USB connection. The RUN pin IS the reset input. Easy to connect by a smal switch. Way to many doesn't know this...

[@RyanGaudion]

Thank you for sharing - I'm sure this will be useful information to many watching 👍🏼

[@rob28803]

This is the problem with setting a dollar value limit on the design. Obvious and necessary things that cost pennies are left out. They could’ve left pads or holes for a switch to mount at least.

[@geoninja8971]

I'm a fan of the in-built clock, I could have used that in a nano a lot....

[@RyanGaudion]

It is very useful indeed

[@wishicouldarduino8880]

Cool video I did not know this wow!

[@RyanGaudion]

Glad it was all new to you

[@onjofilms]

Thanks, good info. I'm trying to set up the C SDK and got stopped at VSCode. Creating a new folder does not seem to make a new project. The build is going all around it but not building from my CMakelist text file. Any ideas?

[@RyanGaudion]

Thanks for the comment! I haven't used it in VSCode but I do have a tutorial for setting it up in the Arduino IDE. Do let me know if you want a VSCode tutorial too though

[@send2gl]

Fascinating.

[@RyanGaudion]

Thank you 👍

[@hobbytekkie87]

In addition to the languages ... i just startet with the Pico using MMBasic ;-)

[@user-iu8wc5pl4g]

was gonna dislike it if it did not tell anything related to nasa as it was in the thumbnail, but liked the video at the end. no clickbait -> like.

[@RyanGaudion]

No Clickbait from me 😄 - Glad you liked the video. Thank you

[@tinkeriso6169]

Im your new subscriber here, keep the good work bro....

[@RyanGaudion]

Thank you for your comment - what sort of videos do you want to see in the future?

[@JoshF151Tech]

Can this run Pi-Hole in a Docker Container? I'm looking for something cheap to run Pi-Hole on because I don't wanna keep using my Windows Laptop for it.

[@neolomo]

About the Real-Time Clock, Pico seems that no pins for the battery. Blue Pills (STM32F103) had the Vb for the battery, when the main power is removed.

[@RyanGaudion]

Hi Neo, I believe pin39 on the Pico (VSYS) can be used to power system, it can be used in with voltages between 1.8V-5.5V.

[@RyanGaudion]

I think you're getting confused with Pin 40 - VBUS. VBUS only has a voltage if the micro usb port is being used however looking at the datasheet (datasheets.raspberrypi.org/pico/pico-datasheet.pdf) it looks like pin 39 vsys can be used to power the board without micro usb

[@neolomo]

@@RyanGaudion For the Blue Pills (STM32F103 board) case, when the main power is removed, we can use a 3V battery to connect the Vb pin, to provide power to the internal RTC, not for the main board. Pico seems no such pin.

[@RyanGaudion]

Hi Neo - this is Pin 39 - VSys, it can accept voltages from 1.8v to 5.5v

[@fredvandaele7184]

great video, learns a lot! I have a question: could you maintain your pico alive just by plug it to a classic powerbank ?

[@RyanGaudion]

Thank you for your comment - yes you can simply plug the Pico into a Powerbank and it will continue to work

[@joetheprogrammer0]

The only thing to consider is that some powerbanks automatically turn off if there is not enough current being drawn. so you might need to find one that will happily stay on when nothing is connected

[@brunoais]

2:51 Did you say... Megawatts? That was funny XD

[@RyanGaudion]

Definitely milliwatts 😆

[@brunoais]

@@RyanGaudion Yes... Definitely

[@_M_a_r_t_i_n_M]

So basically this whole time I had no frickin clue that all these RPI Pico's I haven't used over the last few years could have worked as the guidance system to put my own satellites into orbit and even for my own personal spacecraft to tour around Near Earth Objects!? TF, had I have known this I wouldn't have sold my body for so long to pay for the bootlegged RPI Model 4B+ I used for the same thing? (Just kidding, I was lucky enough to have foresight and purchased two of the Model 4B+ 8GB RAM models back when they were still actually affordable and not a rare breed of Pokemon).

[@MekazaBitrusty]

Hi, The SI unit for megahertz is MHz while mHz would be millihertz. So capital letters for bigger than the base units and small letters for smaller than the base units. The exception is k because K is already taken.

[@RyanGaudion]

Thank you for the useful information 👍

[@nkronert]

Nitpicky mode enabled: MHz is not the SI unit for megahertz but the abbreviation 😉

[@davidhill499]

Hello Ryan, A few questions. What is the max current for an output pin. What is the total limit current limit if all outputs were used? Some libraries can be loaded by using the package manager, it seems that other functionality can be accessed by the pico reading a python file stored on the RAM, please discuss.

[@RyanGaudion]

Hi David, unfortunately I don't know the answer to those questions off the top of my head. Might be worth checking out the Pico Datasheet here - datasheets.raspberrypi.org/pico/pico-datasheet.pdf If you can't find your answer there, then it might be worth reaching out on the Raspberry Pi Forums - good questions though. Feel free to share the answers here in the comments if you find out the answers

[@abraxalito]

page261 of the RP2040 datasheet says GPIO pins can be configured for 2,4,8 or 12mA. However these aren't hard current limits, see p636 for graphs of output voltage vs current.

[@NASCOCK]

Brilliant mate! I'm using my RPi Pico to weight homebrewed beer kegs to determine how much I've poured! Seems like such a waste for a such a powerful device, but at $4.00 US, I'll just get more!

[@RyanGaudion]

That's an awesome project. The price is so good for them too

[@IamTheHolypumpkin]

I waiting so desperately for the Arduino RP 2040 and for the lifting of the 2 boards only for the tiny 2040. Both are incredible useful for IoT Projects. Currently I mostly use the Arduino Nano MKR 33 and some onld radino32 boards for IoT

[@RyanGaudion]

Looking forward to both those boards too - what sort of IoT projects do you do?

[@johntoe6127]

You should try using ESP32. They're cheaper and more powerful, with WIFI and BT/BLE. Plus 4M memory, multiple SPI/I2C/UART. The only advantage I see in the RP2040 is the PIO and USB hosting. Other than that, I see it as less powerful and more costly than the ESP32.

[@DownunderGraham]

Good video, but I don’t really consider the wifi capability of the Arduino Connect to be a Pi Pico capability. I’ve been searching through all the material to see what wifi board would be easiest to use with the Pico as it has no native wifi.

[@namankohli1061]

a late reply but I've successfully used an ESP01 as an external wifi/compute chip in a project. the ESP connects to wifi, gets the HTTP query, parses it on it's own(it's a full MCU chip after all) and then just sends the final data to the pi pico over UART

[@miketony2069]

Nice summary. Can a camera be interfaced with it?

[@RyanGaudion]

Hi, thanks for the comment. It looks like a GPIO camera could be attached to the Pico. PiHut sell both a 2mp and a 5mp that's supposed to be compatible

[@nigelgunn322]

I program my Picos in Basic and FORTH.

[@gedtoon6451]

The built in temperature sensor will measure the temperature of the chip and is therefore not very good for monitoring room temperature. Consider using a ds18b20 temperature sensor. Micropython has a onewire library that makes it easy to use this device.

[@charlvdwalt1548]

HI i am working on my pi pico from windows it is really a mission ,must i rather use pi 3b ?

[@RyanGaudion]

You can use either. Working from Windows has worked well for me

[@PhillipEaton]

Great video. Forth as an OS and programming language for this device would be ideal, maybe you could cover that in a video?

[@danieljimenez1989]

An OS and an operating system are the same thing... Did you mean to say something else?

[@PhillipEaton]

@@danieljimenez1989 I did, now fixed, thanks for the call out.

[@danieljimenez1989]

@@PhillipEaton cheers!

[@andrewtoogood1429]

Sleep current of 1ma is terrible! its 50 to 100 times more than most popular micro controllers, obviously not designed to be used with batteries for long periods of time.

[@tde04014]

number 7 actually it can draw as little as 0.18mA typical average which gives ~231 days on a 1000mAh battery, but after some extra reading this is only applicable when using custom PCB:s 1mA only gives ~41days which is not so good for dormant sensors but if that is the use case then there are other microcontrollers that draw much less current

[@RyanGaudion]

That's useful to know - thank you for sharing

[@robertbox5399]

I'm guessing the high current is the buck-boost PSU. This is to make it more user friendly for battery power. A proper low power solution would use a simpler supply method.

[@davidgill2592]

I recently bought a Pico, but I found it very ironic that it would not, and still won't, connect to my Pi400, (timeout error), so thinking it may be a dud, I tried it with all 3 of my Windows computers of various ages, where it works perfectly. 😂

[@arijit_student]

Just a thing Pete Warden is not only an Open-Source contributor, he leads Google's Tensorflow Lite Micro team! :)

[@RyanGaudion]

Thanks for sharing - I missed this from the video 👍🏼

[@arijit_student]

@@RyanGaudion No worries! :)

[@pasteurichlebon7615]

Please,could you tell what major to study for doing this kind of projects.please,tell me, I am about to my major in university

[@RyanGaudion]

I'm not sure for the Raspberry Pi specifically - but if you like Software Development then any Computer Science based Course would be good

[@NathanCroucher]

nasa should have used the pico for apollo 11

[@RyanGaudion]

Imagine that 😂

[@AbdurRahman-xw5dc]

Hi Ryan, thanks for the great video. Do you think it is possible to program it using Java?

[@RyanGaudion]

Thank you. Java isn't something I've looked at on the Pico but after a quick Google search it looks like it can be done with "diozero-provider-firmata"

[@shubham9672]

Is it supports Arduino ide ... Can it is replaceblabe of Arduino naho Arduino Uno

[@RyanGaudion]

It does support the Arduino IDE - I have a video out on how to do this

[@MichaelKingsfordGray]

It now hosts MMBasic.

[@RyanGaudion]

That's awesome - would love to try using MMBasic with the Pico

[@johanneszwilling]

Got three of those on the weekend as a gift, soo...everything is new. £3 million you say!?

[@RyanGaudion]

That's awesome - hope you enjoy them

[@gdolphy]

Imagine I'm watching this on a phone with more computing power than the first shuttles to space and I'm stuck here on earth. Who wants to develop an open source space ship?

[@RyanGaudion]

🤣 Send me the Repo link once it's done

[@speway]

All new to me.

[@RyanGaudion]

Glad you learnt something new 👍

[@mihaicristian4079]

1:05 i opened youtube using a homemade pico bad usb and saw this lol

[@RyanGaudion]

Awesome. Would you be able to link to the source code?

[@mihaicristian4079]

@@RyanGaudion i used networkchuck's video kzbin.info/www/bejne/m5DJaqNjlK-KkNk

[@RyanGaudion]

Awesome, thanks 👍

[@wishicouldarduino8880]

Machine learning what's the link for that

[@RyanGaudion]

Here is the repo I referenced in the video - github.com/raspberrypi/pico-tflmicro

[@almostanengineer]

Use your Pico, to probe your Pico, is that Pico caption 🤔

[@ZEMRALEX]

Also RP2040 is powerful enough to run original DOOM

[@RyanGaudion]

That's a great fact! It's incredible what can run DOOM nowadays

[@DeeloGoodquest]

Would machine learning be directly connected to augmented reality?

[@RyanGaudion]

They can be linked but machine learning (ML) and augmented reality (AR) are 2 different technologies. AR overlays computer generated graphics onto the real world where as machine learning allows computers to learn and adapt to situations themselves

[@DeeloGoodquest]

@@RyanGaudion Thanks for the info Ryan. What if I said, I haven't programmed in years, but used to and now I have an idea that utilizes AR and video chat. Where would you send me? Do you know anything about these new zapps? Zoom Apps?

[@RyanGaudion]

Hi Chase, I don't know much about Zoom Apps but that might be a good place to start. Might also be worth looking into a Game engine like Unity or Unreal

[@martinvollderpro]

3:01 1 mA? that sounds a bit much

[@volt897]

cool, i will use it for AI applications

[@RyanGaudion]

Awesome 👍🏼

[@JarppaGuru]

4:04 and? pocket calculator is better than apollo 11 computer lol

[@RyanGaudion]

True 😃 Just goes to show how much technology has developed over the years

[@louiss3409]

I am not sure these devices are secure enough for any purpose.

[@RyanGaudion]

They're great for hobby projects and for production totally depend on the use case

[@tk-maker]

no wifi and bluetooth build in is the reason I dont use PICO

[@RyanGaudion]

This is a limitation of it but it is much cheaper than something like the ESP32. Both have their own use cases

[@ryanhaart]

The Pico is more powerful than the Apollo guidance computer? Shocker, after 50 years 😁. Every computer today is more powerful than the most powerful computer of the 1960s.

[@RyanGaudion]

😄That is very true

[@SoldererOfFortune]

Raj-urry

[@2kBofFun]

Number 11: It has no power-on light. You can't tell if it is working. I was trying an upload, only to find out the USB cable was not connected. Never have that with other brand boards. Number 12: The pin-out is printed on the bottom. Knowing where to connect things is a real PITA, thanks to ridiculous tiny white print on way too bright green. Number 13: The Pico is not THAT fast. The average 64MHz nRF52840 is as fast, an Itsy Bitsy Express at 200MHz totally walks over it, not to forget Teensy 4.1 (20 times as fast is unfair!) Number 14: If the Apollo was coded in Python, it would have been on the bottom of the Pacific. Python makes a Pico as slow as an UNO in C++ Number 15: The Pico is HUGE. The Itsy Bitsy M4 has nearly the same amount of usable pins (25 vs 26), yet it is 40% smaller and twice as fast. A Teensy 3.2 has 8 more pins at 60% the size. Number 16: Documentation is none. You even have to BUY a pinout postcard separately. You are thrown in the gutter when you buy this. Help! Number 17: It has castellated pins to make it a saw blade. Waste of space. Monty Python would say: "Thou shall cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with a Pi Pico!" Number 18: It is too cheap. No money left for packaging, making a reprogrammable bootloader, give it Flash storage for code, adding female headers with print... Number 19: It takes 30 seconds to compile blink in the Arduino IDE, which results in 70000 bytes of code and 50000 bytes of RAM use. The same on a ATtiny85 demands 700bytes and 9 bytes. Number 20: 7 pins are wasted as GND pin. Those could have been usable I/O. Or we could have had a 7.6mm shorter board (which is mostly empty). Number 21: The Pico has USB 1.1 at 12Mbps. The nRF52833 in the Microbit V2 or the Teensy 4's do full USB 2.0 speed for uploading code. The Teensy 4.1 even has dual USB 480Mbps.

[@cycnus]

Some points are valid but you're not being fair to the pico. It's a good compromise and costs 6x less than the The nRF52833 chip itself. The pico documentation is amazing. It doesn't come with a card, but the the pico board cost $5 and is meant for hobbyists, makers and kids. Don't forget that the Raspberry Pi fountadion is a non-profit whose goal is education. Just plug the pico in your PC and you can edit a python file and start experimenting and learning within seconds. I don't see any nRF52833 or Teensy board doing that at $5. They are all great chips and boards of course but you're not comparing them fairly. Starting with Python is OK. Yes it's slow but you can do a lot. Most small hobbyist projects don't require anything super fast to be fun and useful. Once you need more speed just reflash the pico and move to the C SDK. If that's not enough,m then congrats, you can upgrade to a teensy, a ESP32 or something else that suits your project. Regarding pins wasted as GND, that's not really a thing. People who will connect sensors will need to connect to GND at multiple points. And the pico board is just one of a dozen variations of boards. Some with more feature, some with less features and a smaller footprint. Uploading code at US1.1 or USB2.0 doesn't make a difference when all you have are a few MB of flash memory anyway. We're talking seconds. And again, the goal is simplicity and low cost. One last thing: the Apollo mission went to the moon using a guidance computer that had 2Kx16bit of RAM and 32Kx16 bit of ROM. Basically A 16-bit computer running at 2Mhz. I can assure you they would have been over more than happy (over the moon?) to have a pico running Python...

[@2kBofFun]

@@cycnus But the price is NOT an issue. 15 bucks for a micro:bit v2 is every bit as cheap and as non-profit. It also works straight from the box with a single line of code in a .py file if you want. Schools have more than enough money. As teacher you want your kids to have a product that just works and delivers. This is where the 10 extra bucks of the micro:bit make the difference: 4 code languages supported, LED's, gyro/compass, wireless, microphone/speaker, battery connector, 3 buttons, excellent plug-and-play add-on boards.

[@alicewyan]

@@2kBofFun As a techer, I'd love to know where you are, because I've never seen a school that has "more than enough money", for the most part they barely have enough money for the basic stuff...

[@2kBofFun]

@@alicewyan You are right, there is at the same time never enough money, and more than enough money. It's a strange contradiction. I'm talking Netherlands, and schools just got 7.000.000.000 to spend on Corana related problems and learning delays. Things also really depend on people keeping eyes on for example tech promotion campaigns. And try to spend smart. If you go through the regular school distributors, you will get say Spike Prime for 429€. If you have more hands-on in the spending, you buy 51515 robot inventor sets for 249€. That results in 16 sets instead of 9 on a budget of 4K. And for example we don't buy educational licenses (usually 30€/yr/student), so all the budget can go to gear. Pico-8 is a great game coding platform, that costs 15€ for a school wide license, so much cheaper than Unity or GameMaker.

[@bakedbeings]

@@2kBofFun If you're ignoring cost and 15 == 5, why not compare it to a $29 feather or a pi4b? Go for broke mate.

[@MarkHopewell]

£3.60 to buy - £2.99 Post & Packing...

[@RyanGaudion]

It's the same issue for the Raspberry Pi Zero too 😢

[@FUKTxProductions]

ya apple doesnt design their own chip they are using ARM...just as before they were using intel...just saying

[@RyanGaudion]

Hi, it's correct that Apple's new chips are based on ARM however my understanding is that Apple do design the ARM chips themselves and then get TSMC to make them unlike the old Intel chips which I believe they brought directly from Intel

[@bakedbeings]

Apple designs their own chips based on the arm ISA. What you're saying is the equivalent of claiming AMD don't design their own chips.

[@here_4_beer]

it cant learn. It can only propagate a tiny pre-trained model.

[@mr1enrollment]

duh

[@jamesbucsis6296]

Can't do nothing that is worth while

[@alexandrekharlamov150]

"...that sent man to the moon". Omg, you really believe in this crap?

[@RyanGaudion]

🤣

[@Imba-gt7qi]

remarkable features: hardware-statemachines! i2c, spi, uart and easy multiprocessing with micropython , high real time capability

[@danieljimenez1989]

The DMA design, PIO autonomous operation, and the FIFOs connecting the two cores at speed are all great features. I'm going to be using them shortly. Hopefully I can cook up something cool.