Big Tree Tech's SKR Pico Is a Compact Control Board for 3D Printers — Powered by an RP2040

Big Tree Tech (BTT) has launched an aggressively-styled control board for 3D printers, powered by the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller — and featuring a stylish heatsink with a design more commonly found on gamer-centric PC motherboards.

Developed specifically for the Voron V0 3D-printer project though compatible with other devices, and brought to our attention by Electronics Weekly, the BTT SKR Pico looks for all the world like a piece of gaming PC equipment — complete with black PCB and a chunky heatsink with red and white highlights.

Designed to be as compact as possible, at a footprint of 85×56mm (around 3.39×2.2"), the heart of the SKR Pico is the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller — also found in the Raspberry Pi Pico development board from which BTT has gently borrowed the device's name. Recently released for direct purchase for as little as $0.70 per unit, the chip includes a dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ processor with 264kB of static RAM (SRAM) and a clever programmable input/output (PIO) block with up to eight state machines.

Mounted in a four-layer board, the RP2040 controls four TMC2209 stepper motor drivers — located beneath the heatsink for improved cooling, though BTT advises that an active cooling fan should be added if more than 0.8A is drawn through the drivers — and is in turn under the control of the Klipper 3D printer control software running a Raspberry Pi single-board computer, not supplied, with official support for the full-size Raspberry Pi range or considerably more compact Raspberry Pi Zero family.

Interestingly, BTT has opted — again, following in the footsteps of gaming hardware manufacturers — to release two different versions of the board. The standard Pico edition includes the custom heatsink, but is otherwise a bare board; the Pico Armored, meanwhile, adds a metal cover over the bulk of the board - though whether this provides any benefit beyond aesthetics is not immediately obvious.

The boards have been listed on the Biqu website at $35.68 for the Pico and $39.98 for the Pico Armored, but only the former model is available to pre-order ahead of expected stock arrival on February 20th. Both prices include, the company claims, a $20 pre-order discount off the eventual retail price.