Plasma 2350 W

by Pimoroni

An all-in-one, USB-C powered controller for WS2812/Neopixel and APA102/Dotstar addressable LED strips. Now with added wireless connectivity!

Plasma 2350 W is powered and programmable by USB-C and, because USB-C is capable of drawing up to 3A of power, that's enough to power a healthy chunk of LEDs. There's a useful button that you could use to switch between effects, plus a reset button and an onboard RGB LED. We've also popped a QW/ST connector on there, to make it super easy to plug in Qwiic or STEMMA QT breakouts.

The 'W' version comes equipped with a Raspberry Pi RM2 module, which gives it 2.4 GHz wireless and Bluetooth connectivity. Use it to control Plasma 2350 W remotely, hook it up to online APIs or integrate it with your home automation.

You can buy a Plasma 2350 W on its own, or in a kit with a USB-C cable and some super-cool LED stars, so you can get started lighting stuff up right away.

Features

  • Powered by RP2350A (Dual Arm Cortex M33 running at up to 150MHz with 520KB of SRAM)
  • 4MB of QSPI flash supporting XiP
  • Compatible with 5V WS2812/Neopixel/SK6812 and APA102/Dotstar/SK9822 LEDs
  • Screw terminals for attaching your LED strip.
  • USB-C connector for power and programming (3A max)
  • Raspberry Pi RM2 module (CYW43439), supporting IEEE 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN, and Bluetooth
  • Qw/ST (Qwiic/STEMMA QT) connector
  • Reset, BOOT and a user button (the BOOT button can also be used as a user button)
  • RGB LED
  • Fully-assembled (no soldering required)
  • Measurements: approx 61 x 22 x 12mm (L x W x H, including connectors)
  • Programmable with C/C++ or MicroPython

STARter Kit contains

Pinout and Schematic

Getting Started

Connecting Breakouts

If your breakout has a QW/ST connector on board, you can plug it straight in with a JST-SH to JST-SH cable, or you can easily connect any of our I2C breakouts with a JST-SH to JST-SH cable coupled with a Qw/ST to Breakout Garden adaptor.

We've also broken out the I2C, analog, UART and debug pins so you can solder things like breakouts or analog potentiometers directly to them (or solder on a strip of header and plug the whole shebang into a breadboard).

About RP2350

The RP2350 chip is the Double Quarter Pounder & Fries to the RP2040's Double Cheeseburger and can have one or more RISC-V burgers instead of either of the M33 ARMs, to stretch the metaphor.

In addition to the modern M33 ARM cores, there are sides of: more PIO capability, a variety of low power states for sipping electrons, a whole security system and some sprinklings of specialist digital video circuits to offload DVI/HDMI output.

You can expect a tasty boost in performance - our "real world" MicroPython tests are running up to 2x faster compared to RP2040, and floating point number crunching in C/C++ is up to 20x faster. The extra on-chip RAM will make a big difference when performing memory intensive operations (such as working with higher resolution displays) and even more can be added thanks to external PSRAM support.

RP2350 comes in two flavours - A (standard) and B (all the pins). The B chip has a stonking 48 usable GPIO pins, including 8 ADCs and 24 PWMs, and features on some of our new products. 

Click here to view all things RP2350!

11 customer reviews

2 months ago
I love this successor to the 2040. A bit more power output available, so it drives longer light strings better, easy to load firmware , with an onboard neopixel. Great bit of kit at a good price.
by Kevin about Plasma 2350 W via REVIEWS.io
2 months ago
All on a very high level and fast delivery Amazing design, thank you
by Vitalijs about Plasma 2350 W via REVIEWS.io
2 months ago
With just a pico or pico 2 and more than a few neopixels at once, you can end up with dim lights or lights where the colour is off (according to the Adafruit guide, this is to be expected when you run them on 3V instead of 5V). This unit is tailor made for neopixels and provides the 5V feed they need to stay bright and keep their colours true. I used the Adafruit neopixel library with these, and this works wonderfully as a drop-in replacement for a pico or pico 2 with no code changes other than adjusting the GPIO pin that controls the neopixel colours. Also, the starter kit is a pretty good deal, and those lights can cover a good amount of space for the money.
by Tony about Plasma 2350 W via REVIEWS.io
2 months ago
Very fast and easy to program, especially with the Wi-Fi chip. Compared to its predecessor, it can connect to and access the internet much faster.
by Joseph about Plasma 2350 W via REVIEWS.io
3 months ago
This 2350W replaces a pico plus 2 that was driving a cheap Chinese string of 100 lights. The plus 2 used a single WS2812 as a level converter but that turned out not to be man enough for the light string. The string has the data line on all the lights connected in parallel rather than daisy-chained. The level converter on the 2350W has plenty of capacity to drive those type of light strings. My program is a heavily modified version of the WS2812 example in pico-examples. I'm having less success however with software using FreeRTOS - my WS2812 drive program with a HTTP server for command input that works perfectly on a RP2040 (a Pico-W) locks up on the 2350 or I get '*** PANIC ***'. I think there are low-level synchronisation issues.
by John about Plasma 2350 W via REVIEWS.io
3 months ago
Got the Plasma 2350W Working straight away with the Non-Wireless examples. It took a few days for the 'fixed / working' 'pico2_w-v0.0.11-pimoroni-micropython.uf2' file to be released on the 12th which then also worked ok. I guess i was expecting some more 'dynamic' examples for the Wireless version but i guess these will follow in due course. There's nothing wrong with the wireless examples provided per-se but they don't realy showcase the led strip like the non-wireless version. An example that would alter the ligh sequence based upon the sound file from a web based radio station would be astounding. E.g. Your own Disco light show. A great product therefore that with a few more imaginative examples will realy wow new users to MicroPython and Wireless control/
by Philip about Plasma 2350 W via REVIEWS.io
4 months ago
Excellent board. Easily drives 66 star-shaped RGB LEDs on a 10m wire using just an old USB-C 3A 5V phone charger for power. Tough to choose between this and the Pimoroni Pico Plus 2W, but I went for the Plasma's voltage-increased data line and screw-based terminal block in place of the extra GPIO and memory. The Plasma W has enough connections for the project I've got in mind either way. Feels noticeably snappier than the RP2040 too.
by Anonymous about Plasma 2350 W via REVIEWS.io
4 months ago
This Plasma RP2350,is virtual Akin to Plasma RP2040,plus I find allot easier use ESP32 or ESP8622 and WLED, to control pretty pixels,The Rp2350 works okin Arduino IDE.testd with FastLed Library and ok,it's worth having in your collection if you like RGB,pixels and the like
by David about Plasma 2350 W via REVIEWS.io
4 months ago
Not used the wi-fi for a project yet but works fine in testing.
by Peter about Plasma 2350 W via REVIEWS.io
4 months ago
Product appears to be as described. Was waiting for the wireless version of this product. Product came quickly and professional packaged hope to hook it up quickly to give a better review
by Jon about Plasma 2350 W via REVIEWS.io
4 months ago
I really want to give the 2350W 10 stars, but can only give it two right now. Why? becuase there's no library for it that enables the WiFi and Bluetooth, which is why I bought this over the Plasma2040. I can do fun things with the LEDs until the cows come home, but until there is better support it's just a 2040 with one fewer button.
by Benn about Plasma 2350 W via REVIEWS.io