Raspberry Pi Pico Clone with 16MB Flash, USB-C, Neopixel, and More! 

Just for the Type-C connector, I would prefer the clone board. I hate micro-USB plugs, they are just too flimsy and breaks way too soon.

Thanks for this video. I've used Pi Picos since they were first available, but I just bought one of these 16Mb flash clones from Ali Express for £1.69 ($2.17) with free shipping on orders over £8. It took just 8 days to arrive, so we're really in a different ballgame now in terms of price and availability. Naturally, Ali has zero documentation so your video was most welcome, if only to learn which GPIO pins were connected to the USR button and the Neopixel.

Is it really a clone if it has the original chip? Anyone can buy the RP2040 and put it in a dev board; it doesn’t require any reverse engineering or IP license violations as far as I know. Does look like a nice board though. I know the pico went with micro USB for cost and available cables but it still feels backwards.

If I do a "one off" design solely for my own use, a clone is fine. On the other hand, a project that I consider publishing and hope that other users may find useful I would build around the official Pico. Clones pop up and disappear a lot faster than the original products so to make sure my design doesn't rely on the properties of a specific clone it's better to stick with the original.

I bought the RP2040 chips and some memory and make my own board :p I have 10 Picos here to play around, but if I need more, I still would buy the original when it's the normal price of 5 bucks. But buttons are a cool thing, but the LED is not necessary. Will it get hot if you run it for a longer period? I remember RGB LED's that heated up an SSD to a point, the SSD shut down. But you already said it, the Pico is open hardware, we can buy the rp2040 and some SPI memory, most of the stuff is already build to death and at the end, we just put the parts together in our circuit, make the prototype with the Pico until the boards arrive and we have special boards for that. Some even solder the Pico and these Clones into their boards btw, and somebody posted a video, how to access the memory on such a board without the pico micro-usb. The USB-C is a great improvement, I love it too, that's a big plus IMHO.

But neopixel is taking one GPIO pin and you cannot use that pin for anything else, do i get that right? Why do you need that?

Is there support for this board in the Arduino IDE?

Is there an original firmware (current) changed to recognize the 16 MB, because it only detects 2MB with the original one. I had to use the Pomodori Lipo 16MB to see the other ones, but I would like to have the original firmware only updated for the 16MB. Do you have any hints for this?

Fantastic, love the USB-C connector. For my future projects, definitely going with something like this.

GPIO pinouts are printed on PCB. MUCH BETTER!

VCC-GND Studio is the original designer and manufacturer of this RP2040 based Raspberry Pico clone black board. It uses an LDO regulator instead of a buck-boots converter; it is a very low dropout voltage regulator still good for a Li-Ion or LiPo battery (up to 3.4V). The advantage of the LDO is a massively reduction in power consumption in sleep and dormant states.

I’ve successfully use a couple of these with Pimoroni’s Pico RGB Keypad Base without any issues. You get extra memory, user button, a neopixel and much better usb C which is better for repeated connection/disconnection. I found they arrive a lot quicker (< 2 weeks) if you order multiple boards at a time. One thing to note is they are wider than a regular Pico and will overhang pins/connections on some prototype boards.

I bought one, the only difference I noticed that may cause incompatibility is: The 3v3_EN pin was disconnected from GPIO 23 so you can no longer control the SMPS but the pin instead controls the NeoPixel.

I would love to find any Pico W, original or clone.

Just wanted to throw out a little tip to make life during a USB transition easier and that is: Adapters. I got these great USB-C to USB Micro and USB Mini adapters that use jewelry clasps to fasten to the cable and they are amazing. No more digging for older cables when I am working with a board like a Pico or an Arduino Nano. I wish they made a USB-B one. Stupid Uno and it's ancient connector.

USB-C is negative side, where have gone good ol' mini-USB?

When buying Arduinos, I opt for clones because of the price. If there weren't these clones available for tenth of the price, I would have been more cautious when using them and many smaller projects could have been left undone. Raspberry Pi Pico is already so cheap, there is no huge reason for me to go with clones to save money. But if there are variations with USB-C, battery management etc, I can consider buying them instead.

I will go for whichever has pre-soldered pins, I have no loyalty to whose the make of which board. But I am rubbish in soldering, especially with the condition I have, I can barely solder 4 I2C pins but I shorted few MCU boards trying to solder. This is why I swore with ESP32, most are soldered, here's a thought, do one short episode on Pico W and who sells clones of W and with header pins soldered.

I can confirm that Version 2022-1.3 needs R68 bridged for the NeoPixel to work. I bought 2 boards recently and both needed the bridge.

I would consider buying one of these if they were considerably cheaper or RPF Picos were unavailable. I would describe this board as a "re-design". I'm obviously not in marketing. A marketing guy would call it a "re-imagining".😉 Thanks for the video!

Exists also a very similar board "WeAct RP2040", with 16 mb of flash, with one small difference - 3.3v output on 4-th pin fron right side, not on 5th... And no NeoPixel LED there)

To answer Gary's question: Since (all) the clones are based on original design/drawings from RPi Foundation, the RP2040 chip itself will be the original one (hard to clone this, right?) and other components that were present in the original design should be basically the same (BOM is included in public design files) => I wouldn't expect any issues related with the RP2040 itself (oscillator, power, USB compliance, ...). However, the more "changed" the clone is, the less trust I would have. No one wants his RPi Pico project to random reboot occasionally. For critical projects I would choose the original only.

Well, we didn't see the back of the board. Is it empty so that the board can be soldered to a main-board? The clone Pico also lacks castellations In favour of pin-labels, so connecting to a main board would have to be by header or wires/pins. The mounting holes are absent, probably because of the wider USB-C , still a good trade-off in my opinion. What were the RPF thinking not implementing USB-C? The Debug connector also appears to have a dedicated Earth (0V) pin added, a good idea. So, not a replacement for all existing projects, but an overall improvement, though I would prefer castellations to labels, personally.

if the original Pico had a reset button I would keep buying it. But I’m going to place an order for a handful of the ones you described. I don’t mind the USB micro connector too much but I mind it a lot when you have to plug and unplug every time you want to reset the board!

There also pico boards that are smaller like the tiny 2040 from Pimoroni.

I am struggling to make the WS2812 RGB led work on the YD-RP2040 board. Am I supposed to solder the two R68 resistor pads to connect them with the GPIO23? In my board, both pads are not connected but I have read, the Neopixels routine is working for them if these pads are soldered. Also the photos online seems to have a bumpy soldering. Just curious what the experience of other owners might be. Any help will be much appreciated.

I like to support the Raspberry Pi Foundation, so, for onesie-twosie where I don't need extra memory and don't have a use for the Neo Pixel, I would buy the original. Obviously, if my app is bigger or the project is focused around small and the Neo Pixel or I really needed the USB-C,, then my choice is made. Also, if the price difference holds up at scale, even a modest production run may lead to the clone (also something being sold or given to others these days should probably go for USB-C.

What could you POSSIBLY do with 16MB of flash?

Maybe everyone should buy at least one of the original boards to help support and encourage R.Pi Foundation and then clones for the other features when those features are needed.

Well, there is a fairly simple solution. Just donate to the foundations if you use clones. As you can see with the price difference the margins are razor thin anyways. So small donations pay for lots of boards.

nothing wrong with buying cloned boards -never had any trouble using them and they thend to be cheaper

I already bought some of those clones some month ago, because they were easier to get than the original Pi Pico.

I've always bought and preferred clone boards. Never had any issues with them and they tend to offer more features. If the original manufacturers want me to buy from them they should at least offer the same utility as the superior clone versions.

$5 is the same price as a locally produced 200g butter here, how utterly out of whack has the world become?

I also have some of these boards. It seems the ADC isn't working as expected though. The original pi always hfs a bit of noise and therefore never reads 0, this board does, but when applying _any_ voltage it doesn't read anything. Connecting ADC_VREF with the ADC pin results in an obvious 100% reading, but even when releasing the voltage the reading stays at 100%. This absolutely isn't how it behaves on a original Pico. Maybe I'm doing it wrong though 😅

Great video Garry

Is there a datasheet for this clone? How did you know where the peripherals (LED, buttons) are connected?

interesting video as always 👍 great walkthrou of the board. Thanks for sharing your expirences with All of us 👍😃

Yes, it's a clone, but the chip is original, so in some sense, it's not a clone! The pi foundation might even still make a small margin from the chip?

No wireless and it's going to be difficult to produce a "W" version given how crowded it is already.

I support the originals until the prices become too different with no offsetting benefits. A couple of dollars profit don't bother me, but I begin to balk at about 50% extra or $5.

Interesting.

This is a trap for young player : when you list price on ali express always give the price SHIPED !! It's a like a sport on this platform to sell you a 15$ item for just 1$ ... with 14$ shipping. The amount they allocate to "price" and the amount they allocate to "shipping" are pure marketing decision. The reality is there is an overall price including shipping and this is what really mater. So in your instance it's not 5$ but almost 7$ witch is HIGHER than the price of a real one locally sourced !!! That common practice on yt to only give "price" excluding shipping has to change to take that now very common marketing practice in consideration.

If only there was a way to clone the Zero 2 W...

They propably are taking the cheapest USB connectors available on the market, which most times are decaying ones.

one question gary, is uploading code go to the flash chip? and how to check the flash size of the chip. i am quite new to this

Where are you buying your Pico from? Here in India I can buy one for $3.9-$4

By a few originals and pack them away as collector items, then buy and use the clone. That way you support the real innovators, but still get to play with something a little more user friendly.

I have 4 in house and 2 on order of the RPi-2-pico-W (Pico W). I just ordered 2 clones with RP2040 TYPE-C 16MB after watching this. Thanks Gary.

How about buying one of each? They are cheap enough. Use the original whilst waiting for the clone.

Hi Gary & everyone. i bought a clone one with type C connector and 16 MB. but the pinout on the board is different than the original. on one side, it goes from GP0 - GP17 with 2 GND in between. on the other side it goes from GP18 to GP29 along with VBUS, RUN, 3V3 etc. should i follow the GP written on the board? or match it pin to pin with the original?

Yeah this is not a clone, you can clearly see large differences between it and the pico. This is just another dev board for the rp2040. A clone would be if they took the board files for the pico and just got those manufactured and sold them, that isn’t what they did though since you can see a different layout, connector and extra buttons and a neopixel as well as the extra flash. The raspberry pi foundation also released a hardware design guide and sells the rp2040 chips themselves, they want people to make other dev boards, like the pimoroni ones. Just because this is a similar form factor and pin compatible doesn’t mean it is a clone (by that logic any board that uses an arduino uno style header is an arduino clone, which isnt the case), it’s not like an arduino nano clone where the layout and functionality is identical.

I would have taken WIFI instead of the NeoPixel. The rest is great. BUT I also need other developers to USE the 16MB Flash, I feel I don't have enough programming skills to make any use of it... AND ... AND ... of course really I am waiting for the Raspberry Pi 5 (FIVE).

I bought the Raspberry Pi Pico W from Raspberry Pi themselves as I wanted to understand their idea, their intentions, what the pico w can do and what it can't do, how much the company saw, and essentially that the Pico W is mainly just the RP2040 with a wifi module. Their focus is without a doubt on the chip, and to be fair to them, I would rather that. Pros and cons can only come from experience with the board, and such features like usb-c shouldn't be the main reason to start with for getting a clone board. Rather, that you have used the micro-usb microcontroller board before and you know some form of hassle associated. In addition, features such as wifi and sd card functionality embedded are features that you would only really know if you make use of those features. Having to buy an sd card module to add to my project highlights that need for a clone to exhibit for me to buy, while I used the WiFi module so that's a no brainer. I think buying from them directly to start lets you as the customer understand a whole world of embedded systems and services when you break down the product and understand each of the components. It sure has started a journey for me :)

Not 100% compatible I'm afraid, at a minimum, it needs to be the same size and have the mounting holes. Also is the PWR LED always on? If so this is a hinderance for low power projects, and it's power consumption will be different. So it should be designed so that the power LED can be disconnected. I'm always surprised with many Chinese modules/boards, they do 99% of the work, and fail at the last moment, it's almost as if the designer has no idea of how the board is going to be used.

if i would like to buy low amounts of Pi pico then i would go for raspberry foundation. If i would need many of thoose picos then i would go for clones.

I have one and its got nicescreen printing on the top and bottomfor all the pints SUPER NICE.

Ничего не понял, но очень интересно))

I'm having a problem programing a .py can someone confirm the interpreter settings for micropython? Please and thank you.

The Neopixel doesn't work out of the box, for anyone that bought one and can't figure out why that damn thing won't light up it's because you need to solder two points on the board to actually use it. It's not hard, just look on the board where "R68" is printed, under that there are two little exposed solder point. Just join them and it's done. I wasted 3 hours trying to understand why that little shit didn't want to work 😭

I'll be swayed when I can get a Pico W clone ;) I'm happy to hear ESPHome will be adopting the Pico W.

Chinese clones are cheap and ok for learning purpose ONLY! Don't ever make the mistake of using it for Industry projects.

A huge downside of the clone is, in my opinion, that it only has through holes for pin headers. I don't know how it is called, but I really like the possibility of the original Pico to directly solder it on another PCB.

Where do you get the 16mb version of the MicroPython for this board?

Gary, it might be nice to provide a link to the board so we can find it. Or at least provide the search term so we can find the exact board you're talking about.

you have to solder the jumper on the board to enable the ws2812b

Why would anyone use this instead of ESP32 ?

It looks more like a clone of the Pimoroni pico board

beware of clones with Z-flash memory chip installed, esp. with 4mb one

Looks quite similar to the blackpill, maybe the same people made this

I’d still get the original artist (the OG) just because I want to be part of the herd.

do we use pico w or regular pico micropython fimware for these clones?

I have about 10 of the original pico. But I will get a few of the clones also.

What about a wireless version of this one ? WiFi is essential for some applications, right ?

I would buy the RP-4B board instead. With it, I can watch cat videos

*GARY!!!* Good evening Professor! Good evening fellow classmates! Stay safe out there everyone!

Great video. Trust the Chinese to come along and clone an idea, but, make it better….all adds up to healthy competition. I’m wondering if this can be used as a car obd adapter. Thanks

I have 3 picos but I'll buy one of these anyway. For the price of a coffee, why not.

Where is your github repository?

I have ordered two of them, i still have to figure out how to use it as a midi device, the type c is what i wanted!

Q: what does "compatible" mean?

The LED demo looks suspiciously like the RGB wave cycling you'd find on most gaming keyboards. No surprise that they have onboard microcontrollers to control those features.

I'm curious about the broken out GPIO23 which you didn't mention. On the regular Pico it's used to control the power supply. Is it fully usable here?

I bought that board, pluged it and it burned my usb cable =)

Does this board support c++ programming in arduino ide?

Only snag is the official Firmware does not support 16Mb. Is the large memory a Gimmick?

At this point, i'm probably going with clones until the originals come back in stock (which might never happen)

It's cost only 3 dollars here in Philippines hahah

I would only buy this if it was unavailable from Raspberry Pi foundation. I think its better to support the foundation so they can continue to innovate and push forward giving us better chips and boards.

voce pode me fornecer este codifo que aciona o led rgb, obrigado

Hello Where is link to code of examples?

Hi, can you show how burn bootloader in pi pico?

I'm using this board, but I'm programming it using the Arduino IDE. If anyone knows how to control the WS2812 via the Arduino IDE, I'd appreciate some hints.

I'm waiting for the Pico W clone.

3:38 it got rgb like it in my mouse

Hi Gary can I ask for the code? I'm having a rough time configuring my LED and Neopixel on my Pi Pico 16mb with type c. Thanks man appreciate any help.

Do anyone have a CAD file of this ? .

I am a beginner.... i get the LED not started :(

I'll buy whichever is cheaper. I do however want wifi, so that kind of puts me back to the original. For applications that don't require wifi the cones are the way to of. having the onboard addressable led means you can periodically flash the led as an indication the device isn't locked up but still executing its program.

Got the Waveshare RP2040 Plus from Amazon. . It looks like a great board but I haven't opened it yet as I might return it. The battery connector isn't a standard LiPo connector. I'm not sure if I want to put up with that annoyance if I can get one with the correct connector. Otherwise, the Pi accessories are compatible and the hardware is better. I bought too much at once - this, various esp32 boards and a couple other microcontrollers. It's Christmas in October....