Solder Party has launched an adapter which converts the Raspberry Pi Pico or Raspberry Pi Pico W microcontroller board to an Arduino Uno form factor — using the company’s clever FlexyPins to allow the board to removed and reinserted at will.
“This board gives the Raspberry Pi Pico a Uno form factor,” the company explains of its open-hardware design. “Makes it possible to use Uno shields with the Pico without having to solder the Pico in place. All you need are FlexyPins!”
This smart passive board puts a Raspberry Pi Pico at the heart of your next Arduino Uno project. (📷: Solder Party)
Mimicking the iconic spacing of the ever-popular Arduino Uno, the adapter board is entirely passive. FlexyPins, not supplied but available as an extra, are soldered into the board to push against the castellated pin headers of a Raspberry Pi Pico or wireless-capable Raspberry Pi Pico W ― then the pins are brought out to the Arduino Uno-format headers, along with an extra Serial Wire Debug (SWD) connector to the bottom of the board. Alternatively, the Raspberry Pi Pico can be attached using standard pins — or soldered directly as a surface-mount module.
The board costs just $1.50, or you can download the KiCad project and produce your own. (📷: Solder Party)
Compatibility between an adapted Raspberry Pi Pico and an original Arduino Uno isn’t one-to-one: the Raspberry Pi Pico family of boards uses 3.3V logic, while the Arduino Uno is 5V — and the Raspberry Pi Pico isn’t 5V safe. It also exposes fewer analog pins, which may cause a problem for certain shields — but the pin-mapping was specifically chosen to allow for an eight-bit 3.5″ parallel display shield to work without difficulty.
Solder Party is selling the board on its Lectronz store as a soldering kit for just $1.50, including socket headers and a physical reset button — with a pack of 100 FlexyPins available at an extra $6. The KiCad project files, meanwhile, are available on GitHub under the CERN Open Hardware License v1.2.