An Electronic Leadscrew Controller using a Pi Pico

[WobblyHand]

Because I have a display in hand, it is obvious from the photo, that the slight something under the board (on the bottom edge) is the card reader. I could see how that would be missed by many people, including myself, had it not been pointed out.

Sometimes we are dealt surprises. For me, it has been my laptop crapping out. Still have to carry on though.

 

[AlanB]

Good catch. I didn't notice that before. The display is full of minor contradictions. The lettering for the display connector is upside down from the SD card lettering on the back side of the board. Looks like two board designs were rotated then merged. I guess there's a reason the Adafruit unit is more expensive. The pins for the SD interface are not installed. I'll leave the slot for them just in case.

I think I'll also add another cable tie down block to help manage the encoder cable coil. I'll also leave out the material behind the display center which will save plastic and print time and allow the SD card and other parts to have clearance without spacers under the screws. Considered mounting display behind panel, but would require a lot of rework and probably force the chassis to be wider. Not too anxious to do that. Now down under 100g and less than 8 hours to print.

 

[WobblyHand]

Good catch. I didn't notice that before.

No one would have caught that, if they hadn't seen a real board before, don't feel bad. The display is sold as a display with touch only. They say the SD card reader doesn't work as delivered. As a display with touch, it works great. And the mounting is a lot sturdier than the mouse ears on the Adafruit board.

 

[AlanB]

I do like to support Adafruit, but those mounting ears aren't great. PJRC is also on the good to support list.

 

[AlanB]

I saw where someone overclocked the Pico to over 400 MHz. Not planning to do that, and it caused some issues, but pretty amazing.

 

[WobblyHand]

I saw where someone overclocked the Pico to over 400 MHz. Not planning to do that, and it caused some issues, but pretty amazing.

Just looking in the Arduino IDE, it seems that one can overclock the Teensy 4.1 to 816 MHz without cooling and 1.008 GHZ with cooling. Right now, I am loafing along at 600 MHz, which is the normal speed.

You know, for the heck of it, I ought to at least try a Pico sketch. Not happening. Arduino 1.8.19 doesn't natively know about Pico, even after selecting RPI Pico board support. Blink doesn't compile. Guess one still needs to add the non-official support package. FWIW, RPI doesn't even mention Arduino under the Pico docs. Oh, well, was worth a try. Seems Pico still need to be developed under their SDK.

 

[AlanB]

There's a package to load to use Arduino on the Pico. Arduino even has an RP2040 board of their own. I have seen the instructions on the tube but haven't tried them yet.

 

[WobblyHand]

There's a package to load to use Arduino. Arduino even has an RP2040 board of their own. I have seen the instructions on the tube but haven't tried them yet.

Apparently the Pico is different... Installing the board support library for Pico, and selecting the board in the IDE doesn't work. I found reference to the package, but wasn't sure if it was really an approved source. Usually don't install random stuff, without vetting it. I think what needs to be installed is from https://github.com/earlephilhower/arduino-pico

 

[AlanB]

It's pretty new, probably hasn't been folded in fully. Arduino is more interested in supporting their own boards.

I found a video about official support being released and showing how to install it and posted it below. It was deleted for some reason after a short delay. Then it returned. Weird.

 

[AlanB]

Fits Better