Plasma 2350

by Pimoroni

An all-in-one, USB-C powered controller for WS2812/Neopixel and APA102/Dotstar addressable LED strips.

Plasma 2350 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.

You can buy a Plasma 2350 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)
  • Qw/ST (Qwiic/STEMMA QT) connector
  • Intriguing new SP/CE 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!

6 customer reviews

4 months ago
I already have the Plasma2040. This version adds UART, which is helpful to control the device from outside. I don't think I need the additional power of the 2350, but it is cheaper anyways.
by Anonymous about Plasma 2350 via REVIEWS.io
4 months ago
Having a blast experimenting with my LED strip, MicroPython, and Plasma Stick! I decided to share my code with the community — check it out here: https://github.com/st235/MicroLED
by Aleksandr about Plasma 2350 via REVIEWS.io
4 months ago
Awesome product! My cat also seems to like it.
by Anonymous about Plasma 2350 via REVIEWS.io
7 months ago
Very easy to get working. I have a 1m 60 LED strip. I just wired it up and then followed the tutorials. Note: Plasma 2040 mostly work. I already knew Python so MicroPython was straightforward for me. (The Thonny IDE is pretty basic compared to the pro one I am used to, but it did the job.) Also, I was not able to find the API spec for the `plasma` Python package so I could not see all the things it could do. I was hoping my 11 year old son would take an interest because it is pretty cool to see how very simple programs can create awesome effects. Alas, it cannot compete with Fortnite though! Here's a sample program that has three RGB "slugs" moving at random speeds with addative colour mixing when they overlap. You can even use classes with magic methods! ``` import plasma from plasma import plasma2040 import time import random NUM_LEDS = 60 led_strip = plasma.WS2812(NUM_LEDS, 0, 0, plasma2040.DAT) led_strip.start() class Colour: def __init__(self, r=0, g=0, b=0): self.r = r self.g = g self.b = b def __add__(self, val): return Colour(self.r + val.r, self.g + val.g, self.b + val.b) def show(values): for i in range(NUM_LEDS): c = values[i] led_strip.set_rgb(i, c.r, c.g, c.b) class Slug: def __init__(self, position=0.0, length=10, speed=1.0): self.position = position self.length = length self.speed = speed def step(self): self.position += self.speed if self.position + self.length > NUM_LEDS: self.speed = -self.speed self.position = NUM_LEDS - self.length if self.position < 0: self.speed = -self.speed self.position = 0 slugs = [ (Slug(random.randint(0, NUM_LEDS-10), 10, random.uniform(0.5, 1.5)), Colour(255, 0, 0)), (Slug(random.randint(0, NUM_LEDS-10), 10, random.uniform(0.5, 1.5)), Colour(0, 255, 0)), (Slug(random.randint(0, NUM_LEDS-10), 10, random.uniform(0.5, 1.5)), Colour(0, 0, 255)), ] while True: values = [Colour() for _ in range(NUM_LEDS)] for slug, colour in slugs: for i in range(slug.length): n = int(slug.position) + i values[n] += colour slug.step() show(values) time.sleep(0.02) ```
by Simon about Plasma 2350 via REVIEWS.io
7 months ago
Driving two 8x8 arrays. Pushing the recommended pixel count but I figure if I keep them dim no smoke gets out. Using the freshly working MicroPython, thanks Gadgetoid!
by Samuel about Plasma 2350 via REVIEWS.io
8 months ago
I have had great success with the Plasma 2040 and this is even better. I asked for more GPIO pins and they are there on the SP/CE connector. Happy to sacrifice button B for that. So more performance, more memory and more i/o. Add in software support from Pimoroni if you need it. This is a brilliant (ha!) little board for working with WS2812 pixel strips. The 4-star rating shown in some places was my finger trouble. My intended rating is 5-star all the way.
by David about Plasma 2350 via REVIEWS.io