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Plasma 2040

by Pimoroni

Swathe everything in rainbows with this all-in-one, USB-C powered controller for WS2812/Neopixel and APA102/Dotstar addressable LED strip.

Plasma 2040 is a RP2040-based driver board for addressable LED strip (also known as magical rainbows by the metre). It's designed to make rigging up bits of custom, programmable lighting as straightforward as possible - perfect for whipping up some quick under-cupboard illumination, dramatically underlighting your sofa or providing some atmospheric mood-lighting for your workspace, PC or vivarium.

Plasma 2040 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 three useful buttons that you could use for turning the lights on and off or to switch between colours or effects, plus a reset button and an eternally popular 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 - how about hooking up an RGB potentiometer to adjust the speed or hue of your lights, an air quality sensor to make your desk lighting into a giant thermometer or tell you when you should crack a window or a light sensor to turn them on automatically when it gets dark?

Features

  • Powered by RP2040 (Dual Arm Cortex M0+ running at up to 133Mhz with 264kB of SRAM)
  • 2MB 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)
  • Qw/ST (Qwiic/STEMMA QT) connector
  • Low side current sensing (accessible via ADC3)
  • Reset, BOOT and two user buttons (the BOOT button can also be used as a user button)
  • RGB LED
  • Fully-assembled (no soldering required)
  • Measurements: approx 50 x 28 x 12mm (L x W x H, including connectors)
  • C++/MicroPython libraries
  • Schematic
  • Dimensions

LED strip and connectors are sold separately, check out the extras tab for some options!

Software

You can program Plasma 2040 with C/C++ or MicroPython in the same way as you would a Raspberry Pi Pico. You'll get best performance using C++, but if you're a beginner we'd recommend using our batteries included MicroPython build for ease of getting started.

You can also use CircuitPython on your Plasma 2040! CircuitPython is an easy to use, well-established ecosystem with lots of example code and drivers for interfacing with different kinds of hardware.

Check out our beginner friendly tutorial that covers how to hook up different kinds of LEDs to Plasma 2040 and how to use it to build a simple busy light. It includes both MicroPython and CircuitPython code!

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 a set of I2C pins, analog pins 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).

Notes

  • Our C++/MicroPython software uses the RP2040's PIO state machines to drive each strip separately - this board only has one set of LED strip connectors, but if you're up for some inventive wiring it's possible to drive multiple strips simultaneously, even if they're of different types!
  • If you're curious about how much current your LEDs are consuming, we've incorporated some current sensing circuitry onto this board, which you can measure by reading ADC3. You could use this in your code to do things like adjusting the brightness of your LEDs based on available power!

About RP2040

Raspberry Pi's RP2040 microcontroller is a dual core ARM Cortex M0+ running at up to 133Mhz. It bundles in 264kB of SRAM, 30 multifunction GPIO pins (including a four channel 12-bit ADC), a heap of standard peripherals (I2C, SPI, UART, PWM, clocks, etc), and USB support.

One very exciting feature of RP2040 is the programmable IOs which allow you to execute custom programs that can manipulate GPIO pins and transfer data between peripherals - they can offload tasks that require high data transfer rates or precise timing that traditionally would have required a lot of heavy lifting from the CPU.

25 customer reviews

7 months ago
It's a very nice little gaming console with a decent display and an aluminium case that looks and feels quite sturdy and durable. You can find some games for it on the internet - but the real fun could be writing those by yourself. When I tried I found a reason that makes me write this four-star-only rating. To access the debug pins of the built-in RP2040 you have to open and remove the case. It would have been much nicer if there was one removable panel with those pins behind...
by Thomas about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
7 months ago
Well built, feels very premium. There's a decent little community making games for it, and it can run things like an NES emulator without too much issue. I am not currently a skilled enough C++ developer to make anything worth playing for it, but I did manage some basics reasonably quickly.
by Ed about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
9 months ago
I'm really impressed by what this tiny thing is able to do! I was able to write a simple game in a matter of hours... You can even upload a NES emulator on it.
by Benoît about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
An awesome system based on RP2040. Build quality is very solid and the device has a very nice weight to it. Battery life is also very good. Comes with a nice platformer pre-installed. I haven't made anything with it yet but look forward to adapting my Pico Display games to this one.
by Mircea about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
I am very happy and also surprised, I received all the material in eight days from the order, congratulations! Everything arrived in perfect condition and Pimoroni products are always of excellent quality. Thank you!
by Giuseppe about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Small, cute and very nice hardware. Especially aluminium body is great.
by Anonymous about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Great device but haven't got it working on my linux mint install yet.
by Daniel about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Very clicky buttons, bright screen and looks good in motion. The build feels very solid.
by Matthew about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Very comfortable in hand. Seem sturdy enough to lend it to my small children. I am in the process of porting one of my web game to it. Very easy to program for it, or, if that's not your thing, to load the few available games on it.
by Julien about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Amazing little gizmo. Really well made and feels solid. Need to learn about writing my own games and such for it but the hardware and possibilities are fantastic
by Fiona about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
It’s a nice little handheld with a good sdk though I wish the debug pins were more accessible
by Henry about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Simply amazing! The quality of this product is off the charts! The rest is up me, getting my programming skills to a level where I can make a game worthy of the system.
by Luke about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
The ordering experience was very quick. The delivery to the USA was fairly quick using Royal mail during this time of Covid.
by Gelsomino about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
This is an incredibly well made system. I hope to be able to develop some nice games with it.
by Michael about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
First impression of the RP2040-based tiny game console PicoSystem is really positive. Ridgid build quality, robust FPS and responsive buttons!
by Johannes about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Oh yeah going to get my game programming on. Default games on the Pimironi website are good too. 10/10 would recommend.
by Rohan about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
System works well, instructions are good. I had issues with tool chain on windows for raspberry pico sdk. Once I switched to Debian in virtual box everything worked fine. I recommend using putty and ssh for programming to get copy paste functionality and winscp to copy files. The hardware is very well built and I highly recommend it.
by Todd about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Amazing little video game machine in your pocket where programming is as easy as editing a text file on a USB drive!
by Chipp about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
It looks like a commercial games device, it looks really good. Solid build and I cannot wait to start building games and apps for it.
by Stephen about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
The build quality is extremely good. Especially the aluminium case makes it feel great. The screen has a good quality but it’s pretty small which kind of makes the charm of the PicoSystem. The 32blit SDK is great for developing own games and it has an active community behind it. There are also other SDKs available which I haven’t had experience with yet. Overall the PicoSystem is great for getting into retro game development.
by Anonymous about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
A very cool little device. I love the metallic body and front plate.
by Anonymous about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Great little device! It feels super solid and high-quality, and looks fantastic. The RP2040 is very nice so far, and importantly, both the PicoSDK and the PicoSystem SDK are very easy to use, especially the examples in the PicoSystem repo. If you've dabbled in retro console game dev, the PicoSystem is something like a GBA packed into the size of a GB Micro, and has similar limitations in RAM and ROM, just with a smaller screen (but roughly twice the pixels of the original GB at 240x240 vs 160x144), same button count as the original GB, a much faster CPU, and MUCH better documentation. Highly recommend it; it's a lot of fun.
by Ulises about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Very nice build quality, but the game library is quite lacking right now.
by Anonymous about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Fantastic pocket-ready build, both C++ and CircuitPython ready. 32blit SDK has been great to work with so far!
by John about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
The fit and finish in the PicoSystem is outstanding and the SDK tools provided to get started provided everything I needed to start tinkering.
by Matthew about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io

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