Any Chance for a Notecarrier for the Raspberry PI Pico

Since the PIco is becoming one of the darlings of the IoT world, any chance we will a notecarrier for the basic / native version of the Raspberry Pi Pico? It would also be nice to have one with an SD Card built in.

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It’s something we’ve discussed, for sure, @vstadmin! Not currently on the official hardware roadmap at this time, but feedback like this helps us gauge customer interest, so thank you!

In the meantime, if you are keen to spin a few boards of your own, @yamanoorsai created a Pico Notecarrier for his Pico Phone Hackster project!

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I would also suggest that there is an RP2040 board in the feather form factor. You could use it with the Feather carrier board.

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Looking at the BOM for that Pico carrier project AND the BOM for the default Carriers, they reference MDT420E01001 as the Part # for the M.2 connector. When I look up this part number in digikey and mouser, I get a completely different and incompatible m.2 connector.

I am definitely capable of making a board, but i’m having trouble sourcing the actual Amphenol m.2 type E connector that is required.

@yamanoorsai - Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately the Adafruit Feather version is out of stock every time I look and its made for circuitpython and not micropython. Plus their board is $11.95 instead of $4.00. and we are looking to build a commercial product.

Looking at the BOM for that Pico carrier project AND the BOM for the default Carriers, they reference MDT420E01001 as the Part # for the M.2 connector. When I look up this part number in digikey and mouser, I get a completely different and incompatible m.2 connector.

Does the picture of the connector look different? Don’t worry about it. You will still get the right connector when you order it.

If pricing is a concern, you could just use the RP2040 MCU. It just costs US$1. Also, I am assuming you are aware that you can overwrite the circuitpython binary with the micropython one.

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@yamanoorsai I would just hate to order a PCB made with a part number that I could not visually be guaranteed was the right part. It would be hard to un-make that board after the fact.

And yes, I am looking at the $1 RP2040 MCU and salivating. When costing out a project for resell, every bit helps.

Well, I did order the connectors in question and they worked for my design.

where did you order from?

I have ordered both from Digikey and Mouser.

ok. Thank you. I will give it a shot.

Follow up Question: I am using Easy-EDA and LCSC to build the board. I cannot find the 2D and 3D symbols for this connector anywhere. I have found many other m.2 SMD Connectors, but they have different pin arrangements and the traces are not going to line up.

Any help would be appreciated!!!

BTW, looking up here - https://www.snapeda.com/parts/MDT420E01001/Amphenol/view-part/ and other places on the internet, still visually show the wrong part. This part has 3 pins on the short side where the Amphenol E card socket has 11 pins on the short side. I have no idea what to do?

I created my own connector on Eagle. I think there was a generic connector footprint that I modified myself.

Can anyone verify this for me?

Hello @vstadmin .

I worked on this footprint a while back. It doesn’t have the mounting Screw.

https://oshwlab.com/pmjackson/notecard

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@Pat !.. Thank you!

Maybe the Tiny 2040 (https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/tiny-2040?variant=39560012234835) is an option to use only the base Notecard.