$5 Raspberry Pi Pico Clone with USB-C, MicroSD, 8MB of Flash, and More! 

they cut a lot of corners to get to $4 during a pandemic.

Yes, I have covered some of those boards from Ardushop in other videos.

Do you know who makes them? I can imagine some company like Flextronics.

I am not very sure that this is made 100% in Europe/Romania. At this price, SOMETHING must come from China (components, PCB, etc)

@@paleopteryx Most like, as you buy components from different msnufacturers.

@@paleopteryx It's a start at least. If they're successful enough, who knows?

@@39Chevy I just bought a couple marble picos from them, they look great and the price is unbeatable. What more can I say. I wish them all the best.

In fairness, China has gotten really clever with shipping as well. For example, AliExpress has a “pick 3” where every product is $2 or $3 shipped (!) to the United States. How they pull it off is that these are all very small and lightweight items. AliExpress ships and warehouses these items in the US, from where they bundle everything you ordered into a single USPS shipment. They use scale and volume to keep the shipping costs incredibly low while using that volume to make money on the other side, just a few cents at a time. It’s a really impressive operation that the EU has no answer for.

Going to assume Gary was asked to promote it or just sent it as a sample (given the laser etched channel name on the SD housing - although could be doing Gary a disservice if he etched it himself!)

@Nevermind No I bought it with my own money and the free engraving is available to everyone who orders one.

@@GaryExplains oh, that's cool! My apologies then - didn't expect that laser etching would be a possibility on such a low cost item hence assumong it was a promo item. Quite practical all the same though, as laser etching them for industrial use would help with system identification.

The fault is in the RP2040 silicon and there is no update as yet so the ADC is only good for 8 bits

@@petermather3049 No? The ADC is perfectly fine on the RP2040, but on the pico the ADCref was connected directly to the DC-DC (switching) converter, thus constantly comparing an analog signal to a noisy voltage reference, thus having a noisy reading. This can be mostly solved in low power situations by pulling up GPIO 23 by software (which is connected to the PSM of the converter, which makes it's output less noisy. Check the RT6150 datahseet for more info) This board uses a linear regulator for the ADCref, and, as implied by the name, it's output is linear (not noisy, other than the normal noise experienced in any conductor), thus giving an accurate reading on an analog pin. This does come at the price of not being able to draw as much power from the 3V3 pin. They didn't add a second DC-DC converter due to price constraints.

@@pi0neer758 The RP2040 ADC has known non-linearities which means it is only good for about 8 bits. It doesn't matter how good ADC-REF is or how stable the power supply the fault is in the RP2040 silicon

@@pi0neer758 The RP2040 ADC has a DNL that is mostly flat, and below 1 LSB. However at four values - 512, 1,536, 2,560, and 3,584 - the ADC’s DNL error peaks above this value. The ENOB for the ADC has been reduced from 9-bits (simulated) to 8.7-bits (measured), see Section 4.9.3. The DNL errors will somewhat limit the performance of the ADC dependent on use case.

That very much depends on where you live, doesn't it?

Bruno from ArduShop/GroundStudio: We are making then on our SMT line and get all the parts on reels. Many parts are used on other boards as well.

I discuss that in the video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ma40w3_8dtg.html

Because SPI is the easiest interface to access SD, but it is also the slowest.

@@GaryExplains I understand that, and actually I'm in europe (sorta), and have a project that I dream to manufacture, and rp pico is used there, so I'm very willing to use european manufacturer instead of chinese. It just appeared strange to me since they kinda have access to all pins of mcu anyways, and sdio if just 2 extra pins.

@@KyrychenkoAnton maybe in the next revision they will make it happen

Not yet.

Yeah, because of Brexit.

@@GaryExplains Oh, that's not good, shame as looks a really useful Pico.... I'll keep searching for alternative sources, you mention China but nothing coming up on search apart for Marble - the rock lol.

The China boards aren't called Marble. There are generic clone boards with 16MB of flash. Search for Pico 16MB on Aliexpress.

The only place you can get a Marple Pico at the moment is from Romania.

@@GaryExplains They *should* be carried by Microcenter stores in the USA. I'm hoping someone figures out how to make that happen.

costa cat 2 beri livrarea

Likewise!

@@FreezeS Bruno, can you ship to Maine in the United States?

@@3rd_Millennium_Engineering we can only ship wholesale orders outside EU as export customs paperwork is very costly for us.

@@FreezeS In Australia places like Core electronics are good as well as Jaycar electronics too they are my local go-to places. Core for the more technical stuff and Jaycar because they have many stores. Altronics might also be a good option.

​@@FreezeS CoreElectronics or LittleBirdElectronics might be worth a try

​@@Dilshad-gu7je yeah Jaycar are also worth a try

I gave the name of the website in the video: Ardushop.ro

@@GaryExplains got it thanks ! I've just ordered

As far as I can tell, if you live outside of Europe right now, you can't. One fellow seems to have ordered it from shipped to the US, but he hasn't divulged the details.

I feel the same way Arthur! Wish I could find it here in the States

Exactly. I’ve given up on finding them. For the price they’re going for now, you can buy a used HP G800. Better everything…

Does the HP G800 have GPIO pins, i2c, SPI, etc?

Have you checked out the Inovato Quadra?

@@GaryExplains over USB, yeah. It’s a normal computer.

I guess my point was that the Pi isn't a normal computer. It has always been better to buy a second hand PC than a Pi if you wanted a "normal computer".

Very odd indeed.

Jonathan Flaherty commented here that it's $12.69 including shipping to the US. Maybe ask him how he did that US shipping part ? (amusingly, in the order I see the comments his comment is right the next one to yours, though it was placed 2 hours later).

It's possible to programm I2S with PIO

How much does it cost to send a package from LA to NY via a courier service?

@@GaryExplains By "courier service", do you mean UPS, FedEx, etc? If so, UPS Ground shipping for LA to New York City is $10.90.

Good. So considering that shipping within Europe means leaving one country, transversing another, and arriving at a destination country, then the price is quite good.

@@GaryExplains Got it. Those who can, do. Those who can't, tax and skim profits.

No, I don't think you got it. Trying looking up the UPS prices for inter-EU shipping, then come back with your nonsensical quips. If fact, nevermind.

Doesn't ESPHome need Wifi?

@@GaryExplains no. it is an optional sw component.

Eh?

@@GaryExplains none of the "5 dollar boards" can be bought for 5 dollars right now. If you have leads on where you can buy these boards for msrp price let me know

Indeed, which I think I mention in the video, no?

Yeah its sad as the maker has many interesting boards and this one has some much needed ugrades like usb c and stemma qt yet us Aussie's miss out again! 😥

There isn't a US distributor

Only ESP32S3 that I know of so far.

Read and write.

May I ask which shop that is?

Eh? The flash is for storing files, not the same as RAM.

@@GaryExplains oh that sram. That’s my mistake I thought that was storage programming memory.

Because everything is practically made in china and what happens is that there are existing huge ships and random stuff just gets added to it basically for free in always existing left-over places. Its economy of scale being in effect. I might think of this from Hungary though - I seriously like the battery charger addition to this board and the SD slot. But not sure if this micro is what I want to design around. I like its properties, but so much symphatize with RiscV that I might think about that instead for little projects just for the support of that cause...

@@u9vata Let me clarify : i'm tired of youtubers following blindly companies marketing and make like shipping is appart for unit price. Shipping 10g from Romania to Germany DOSN'T cost 20€, that's a lie. Companies play on the price vs shipping cost to tricks consumer and makes their prices appear lower than it really is. That became a common manipulation. But what i ask is youtubers who pretend informing us about product to not be part of this lie. What matters is the total cost shipped at my front door and in this instance this board cost ~25€. I agree with you at 6€ it's great, but at 5x that price not that great.

Cool idea. Any particular topics?

@@GaryExplains Containers (Docker)

I am British.

yeah, because he said the english website is not as good, to say that he has to know both languages ? maybe knows someone which does ...

I also speak Romanian fairly well, but I am bad at the grammar and of course I have an accent!

@@GaryExplains are sens. Nu se simte nici un accent românesc. Greetings from Romania:)

@@GaryExplains Greetings from Romania as well! I'm a bit amazed that highly specialized british people like yourself and Ian Cutress know so much about our country, I wouldn't say we're relevant in the hardware computing world. Cheers!

But no charging circuit.

Developer here: that buck-boost converter is very expensive, we decided to spend that budget (and space on the board) on features we considered more important for the users. The original Raspberry Pi Pico has VSYS range between 1.8V-5.5V, for GroundStudio Marble Pico it's 3.4V - 6.5V.

@@FreezeS the rp2040 is a killer mcu. I hope it gets more open source support, it really is amazing at the price point. Do you think there will ever be a version with IP protection?

@@th600mike3 I have no idea, we are not affiliated with Raspberry Foundation in any way.

If they're manufactured in the EU, then why are they available from "Chinese distributers" at a lower cost?

Canada (or U.S....) was not in their list of countries they ship to. How did you pull that off, eh?🤔

@@scottgilson3247 Pimaroni

If only I covered that in the video... Oh wait... I did.

Bruno from ArduShop here. We are working to find international distributors but right now we only ship to EU and have good prices for shipping to countries near Romania.

@@FreezeS Sorry, I didn't realize.

Taiwan makes the current best chips, not this.

Some people are never happy! 😜

Why do you need that? Could you use the PIO?

@@GaryExplains That comment was a bit premature. We are using the RP2040 on a calibration fixture for an encoder. The encoder read measurements need to be done very close to each other and we thought the error was coming from the Clock. That was not the case. The PIO would be the right solution but Platform IO does not support PIO cleanly yet and due to our speed of development we have avoided using it so far.

@@GaryExplains Darn well went to order 20 for a test stand that needed an SD card anyway and decided I might as well use this board but it looks like shipping to the US is not really an option. Very sad.

If you are outside of Europe it is probably better to get a different clone board from China, not the Marple Pico.

Yes of course, otherwise USB-C would be dangerous and useless.

Thank you. Dumb question, I know, but doesn't hurt double-checking :)

Looks like it is available from digikey now.

Why? I got mine for 5 bucks (plus delivery) and several people in the comments have noted that they are in Romania. How can you be sure?

@@GaryExplains because people are buying them en-mass and reselling them on Amazon , eBay , etc. so that price $5 will be hard to come by.

Eh? a) Do you have proof of that, an example listing on Amazon or eBay. b) Even if that is true, why can't you go directly to the supplier?

@@GaryExplains yeah I'm looking for a raspberry pi and they are only available elsewhere plus the supply at the authentic website say not available and they state you can't buy more than one or two. Are you a reselling them ? Because you seem to take offense to what I'm saying. I'm not accusing you of anything just stating the supply facts.

I think there must be some confusion here. I am not taking offensive, however I don't appreciate people spreading false information. This is a Raspberry Pi PICO clone, not a Raspberry Pi clone. There doesn't seem to be any problem with the supply and I don't see anyone buying these and putting them on Amazon (which is why I asked you for an example). Are you sure you haven't confused the Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi Pico?

Ardushop themselves are looking for small business partners in Europe and worldwide. You should contact them directly.

Try directing your thumbs down to Brexit. This is a perfect example of why Brexit was stupid. They will ship to Ireland!