Designing a Minimal RP2040 Dev Board
To increase familiarity with the Raspberry Pi RP2040, David Johnson-Davies created his own development board.
When starting with microcontroller-based electronics, most of us first turn to various dev boards like the Arduino Uno or Raspberry Pi Pico. However, at some point it becomes evident that dev boards are simply an arrangement of a few components to support an MCU and its IO, and that you can integrate such functionality yourself.
David Johnson-Davies has been thinking about a new project based on the RP2040 that – besides actually being available – has some fantastic specs and a sub-$1 price. In order to get more familiar with this chip, he created his own minimal dev board, which integrates nicely into a breadboard per its elongated 20 x 2 pin footprint. The appropriate interface pins are designed to match up with a USB breakout board, certainly a nice feature when programming.
The board includes space for the RP2040 itself, along with flash and power supply chips, plus a crystal oscillator. A number of passives, most in a tiny 0402 footprint, round out the design. He reports these weren’t too difficult to assemble – even after a bit of initial hesitation. That being said, these parts can “escape” if you’re not careful, especially when working with a hot air gun to solder up the QFN56 form factor RP2040. Best to order a few spares just in case.
After this learning adventure, the resulting board is actually a little smaller than the Pico, and looks quite nice in its own right. It will certainly be a great stepping stone to whatever else Johnson-Davies has in mind for the future!
