StackyPi Has Taken Over the Raspberry Pi Board Global Shortage

StackyPi claims compatibility with Raspberry Pi HATs, pHATs and addons. Ashish launched StackyPi  on Kickstarter and now StackyPi available at £14 on SB Components. which seems like amazing solution for running Raspberry Pi HATs as Raspberry Pi is running out of stock everywhere,  This StackyPi - RP2040 Based board based has taken over the Raspberry Pi global shortage and run with micropython firmware.

StackyPi -Image Credit SB Components

StackyPi Review

It's plausible that StackyPi looks familiar. It looks a lot like the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, which allows you to utilise Raspberry Pi HATs, pHATS, and other addons with the RP2040.

StackyPi looks excellent on a strong dark blue PCB. The inbuilt microSD card slot, as well as the onboard 8MB of flash memory, elevate it. But how well does StackyPi perform, and can it deliver on its promises? We did this by putting it on the bench and doing a series of tests on it.

System on Chip	RP2040 (Dual Arm Cortex M0+ running at up to 133 Mhz with 264kB of SRAM)
Storage	8MB of flash storage via Winbond 25064JVS1Q
GPIO	40 Pin Raspberry Pi GPIO
	26 × multi-function 3.3V GPIO pins
	2 × SPI, 2 × I2C, 2 × UART, 3 × 12-bit ADC, 16 × controllable PWM channels
	8 × Programmable I/O (PIO) state machines for custom peripheral support.
Features	Onboard microSD card reader
	Reset button
	Boot / User button
	Debug header pins
Power	Micro USB 5V
Dimensions	65 x 30 mm

StackyPi may appear to be a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, but it is actually an RP2040-based board with a few unique features. The Raspberry Pi Pico's GPIO pins are all broken out using the standard Raspberry Pi 40 pin arrangement. This implies that HATs, pHATS, and add-ons may be attached (if they work is another matter). A micro SD card reader is also linked through the SPI interface. What is the significance of a microSD card?

We can log data to an external storage device, for example. We'll use the onboard flash memory to save our code and Python libraries. However, the onboard flash storage is 8MB (Winbond 25064JVS1Q), which is a good amount of memory considering MicroPython / CircuitPython's small footprint.

Because StackyPi is a Raspberry Pi Pico, we can use it with C++, MicroPython, CircuitPython, and a variety of other programming languages. We'll stay with MicroPython and CircuitPython for the sake of this review.

First, we ran our MicroPython tests and had everything up and running with the Thonny IDE in no time. Everything worked as it should on a Raspberry Pi Pico. We could control the GPIO and blink LEDs, but this is only one component of the test. Although StackyPi and the Raspberry Pi GPIO are physically and electrically compatible, several pin references are different. SB Components has kindly given a reference for decoding between the two.

First, we ran our MicroPython tests and had everything up and running with the Thonny IDE in no time. Everything worked as it should on a Raspberry Pi Pico. We could control the GPIO and blink LEDs, but this is only one component of the test. Although StackyPi and the Raspberry Pi GPIO are physically and electrically compatible, several pin references are different. SB Components has kindly given a reference for decoding between the two.

First, we ran our MicroPython tests and had everything up and running with the Thonny IDE in no time. Everything worked as it should on a Raspberry Pi Pico. We could control the GPIO and blink LEDs, but this is only one component of the test. Although StackyPi and the Raspberry Pi GPIO are physically and electrically compatible, several pin references are different. SB Components has kindly given a reference for decoding between the two.

On to CircuitPython, where we discovered that StackyPi had truly found its feet. We immediately managed to conduct the same LED tests after installing the current version of CircuitPython 7 for the Raspberry Pi Pico to ensure everything was functioning. Our Pibrella test was likewise a resounding success. Adafruit's abstraction of the Neopixel library and its broad collection of Python modules made the Unicorn HAT (Neopixel) test a lot easier.

To round off our efforts, we were able to use the inbuilt microSD card reader with the most recent CircuitPython version. We had to make a few adjustments to locate the necessary SPI pins, but we got there and successfully created a new file, then retrieved the contents back in CircuitPython.

StackyPi is a well-made board that can operate Raspberry Pi HATs, pHATs, and addons amazingly. This is the board for you if you have the abilities to port Raspberry Pi HATs / pHAT to the Raspberry Pico.

Credit  - Les Pounder Read Original Post at Tom's Hardware