Pimoroni has packed the pixels into the newest entry within the Pico W Aboard vary, powered by a module-mounted Raspberry Pi Pico W microcontroller: the brand new Cosmic Unicorn provides 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 need to convey info fabulously and ginormously,” the corporate explains of its newest machine. “Invoking RP2040 magic means we will replace the LEDs actually shortly (we measured round 300 fps at 14-bit precision). This implies there is no nasty strobing, artifacting, or brightness stepping when it is filmed, so it is excellent 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 among Pimoroni’s authentic batch of Pico W Aboard gadgets. The place the Galactic Unicorn makes use of an ultra-wide format with 583 RGB LEDs organized in a 53×11 matrix, although, the brand new Cosmic Unicorn provides a sq. format of a formidable 1,024 individual-addressable LEDs in a 32×32 matrix.
On the rear of the board is a Raspberry Pi Pico W, which provides 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 among 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 should you desire. A battery connector supplies assist for really wi-fi operation, whereas bundled metallic legs permit 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 huge or go residence you may get six and construct one heck of a elaborate dice!”
The Cosmic Unicorn is now out there 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.
