Pimoroni has packed the pixels into the most recent entry within the Pico W Aboard vary, powered by a module-mounted Raspberry Pi Pico W microcontroller: the brand new Cosmic Unicorn gives over a thousand individually-addressable LEDs on a single board.
“Cosmic Unicorn is a really stunning, all-in-one, RP2040 powered LED matrix for whenever you wish to convey info fabulously and ginormously,” the corporate explains of its newest gadget. “Invoking RP2040 magic means we are able to replace the LEDs actually rapidly (we measured round 300 fps at 14-bit precision). This implies there isn’t any nasty strobing, artifacting, or brightness stepping when it is filmed, so it is good for including to the background of your streaming setup.”
The Cosmic Unicorn is a follow-up to the Galactic Unicorn, unveiled in June final 12 months as one in every of Pimoroni’s unique batch of Pico W Aboard units. The place the Galactic Unicorn makes use of an ultra-wide structure with 583 RGB LEDs organized in a 53×11 matrix, although, the brand new Cosmic Unicorn gives a sq. structure of a powerful 1,024 individual-addressable LEDs in a 32×32 matrix.
On the rear of the board is a Raspberry Pi Pico W, which gives a dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller operating at as much as 133MHz inside official specs, 264kB of static RAM (SRAM), and 2MB of off-chip quad-SPI (QSPI) flash with execute-in-place (XIP) assist. In contrast to the sooner Raspberry Pi Pico, the Pico W additionally features a radio with 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connectivity — and Bluetooth, early assist for which is included in an alpha-status firmware turning the Cosmic Unicorn right into a Bluetooth speaker with built-in quick Fourier remodel (FFT) visualization capabilities.
The Cosmic Unicorn is one in every of a rising variety of Pico W Aboard elements, powered by a Raspberry Pi RP2040. (📷: Pimoroni)
To drive the latter demo the board contains an onboard amplifier plus a small built-in speaker, with the choice so as to add one thing beefier in the event you favor. A battery connector offers assist for really wi-fi operation, whereas bundled metallic legs enable it to function free-standing — and two STEMMA QT/Qwiic ports on the rear provide solder-free connectivity to exterior {hardware}. “Alternatively,” Pimoroni suggests, “if you wish to go massive or go dwelling you possibly can get six and construct one heck of a elaborate dice!”
The Cosmic Unicorn is now accessible on the Pimoroni retailer at $79.50, together with pre-installed Raspberry Pi Pico W with MicroPython firmware, metallic legs, and a USB micro-B cable.