Cytron Maker Pi Pico Review & Demo

Maker Pi Pico has everything you may need for a Raspberry Pi Pico project on one board to get you started especially if you are new to Raspberry Pi Pico’s. If you purchase the board with the Pico included it comes preloaded with CircuitPython ready for you to hack around with. We take a look and give you a demo of all its onboard features.

• Background
• Video Review And Demo
• With Or Without The Pico Onboard
• What Do You Get
  • Labelling
  • RGB LED
  • Audio
  • Reset Button
  • Buttons
  • Grove Connectors
  • Micro SD card reader
  • ESP-01
• Price
• Software
• Conclusion

Background#

We usually buy the devices we review, this was the first review we have done for an item we didn't pay for ourselves. We do get a lot of offers but this one stood out with no strings attached.

We didn't have to review it, there was no time limit, and we could say what we liked even if we didn't like it. We'd never publish a bad review of a gift someone sent, we just wouldn't put up a review at all in that case.

Anyway they were with good reason confident we'd love the Maker Pi Pico and we did. Thanks to Siaw Lim for sending us one out.

Video Review And Demo#

With Or Without The Pico Onboard#

There are 2 versions, one with the raspberry pi pico RP2040 board included and one without. We received the version with the board already on.

There are great reasons for both, it would be useful to be able to add and remove the board which you could do with the Maker Pi Pico Base and it's cheaper.

The version with the board comes with some code already preloaded and it's ready to go right from the off. So a good choice for beginners or as a gift.

What Do You Get#

Labelling#

The first thing you notice is the clear labelling, everything you could possibly want is there back and front. The GPIO pins have blue LED lights which are on/off depending on the status of the pin it represents.

You can disable the GPIO LEDs by scratching the solder off the back of the board.

RGB LED#

There is a WS2812 Neopixel RGB LED at the top right nicely labelled and hooked up to GPIO Pin 28.

Audio#

We have a buzzer which is more than just a buzzer more of a mini speaker connected to GPIO Pin 18.

A 3.5mm audio socket is connected to GPIO Pin 18 and 19 (left and right). We've had to solder many audio sockets so it's great to have one onboard here.

There is a switch so you can turn the speaker off if you are putting audio through GPIO Pin 18 and only want the signal routed to the audio socket.

Reset Button#

We've always thought the Raspberry Pi Pico was missing a reset button and were happy to find a labelled run button on this nifty board.

Buttons#

There are 3 buttons on the board, this would be enough for the majority of our projects.

Grove Connectors#

There are 6 grove connectors. We don't have any components as yet that use these grove connectors so haven't used them. They sure look handy though, in the meantime our jumper wires are more than sufficient.

You can get Grove to jumper wire headers and Grove to I2C Quicc adapter cables. Thanks to akb168 for the tip.

Micro SD card reader#

We didn't get chance to test this SPI SD card reader in the video but have since managed to read and write to it. Really handy to be able to get data on and off the device if you are in the field.

ESP-01#

We didn't get chance to test this out in the video and still haven't but for those that invest the time you can add Wi-Fi connectivity to your RP2040 projects. It's on our list to test as it would be extremely useful.

Price#

This really is cheap as chips, you could pick one up for around $10US at the time of writing. Incredible value.

Software#

The version which includes the Raspberry Pi Pico comes with Circuity Python Firmware preloaded and demo code on there to showcase its lights and sound.

Conclusion#

This comes highly recommended, and since our video we have used our Maker Pi Pico in so many prototypes. It's an ideal partner to the Raspberry Pi Pico and has countless uses.