[Hardware] Adafruit Feather RP2040 Review: A More-Refined Raspberry Pi Pico

[Agent47]

 

 

The Raspberry Pi Pico was the first microcontroller to feature Raspberry Pi’s RP2040 SoC, but a number of vendors are releasing their own third-party boards with added features. The latest and, so far, best is Adafruit’s Feather RP2040, which combines the po[CENSORED]r Feather ecosystem and form factor with Raspberry Pi silicon.  

Powered by a variety of SoCs from the likes of Atmel and Espressif, Adafruit’s Feather line of microcontrollers has been around for years so there’s a plethora of accessories and add-on boards called FeatherWings, which can mount either on top of or underneath the board or, if we use stacking headers, on both at the same time. 

Even if you’re not invested in the Feather ecosystem, there’s a lot to love about the Adafruit’s microcontroller, including its strong battery support, STEMMA QT compatibility, 8MB of Flash storage and four ADC ports. At three times the price of a regular Pico, the Feather RP2040 still offers great bang for the buck.
As you may have already gathered, the Adafruit Feather RP2040 follows the Feather design principles and so it is compatible with the Feather range of addons, known as FeatherWings. Measuring 2 x 0.9 inches (50.8 x 22.8mm) the Feather RP2040 is slightly larger than the Raspberry Pi Pico which measures 2 x 0.8 inches (51 x 21mm).

Despite the larger size, the Feather RP2040 comes with a slightly-reduced number of GPIO pins, -- 21 versus the PIco’s 40 -- laid out to match the Feather pinout. It is great to see the GPIO labeled on both sides of the board as the Pico’s labels are only on its underside. .

Of the 21 pins there are four 12-bit ADCs, one more than the Pico and we gain the extra ADC by not monitoring the battery power levels. There are two sets of I2C pins, two SPI and two UART. Of the 21 pins, 16 can be used for PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) such as servo control, LEDs and basic audio output.

Onboard the Feather RP2040 is a simple red LED and we see a single Neopixel RGB LED which we can control using CircuitPython. On board flash storage is four times the amount found on the Raspberry Pi Pico, 8MB vs 2MB. With a typical CircuitPython install, we still have around 7 MB spare for our code and the supporting libraries.

Feather boards come with extra features, and the Feather RP2040 is no different. In the top left of the board, we see a JST connector for compatible Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries. When plugged into USB, the battery is charged at a 200mA, making this handy for embedded projects and even cosplay.