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I bought a badger2040 recently. I mainly wanted it for the ebook feature. A pocket-sized eInk device could make reading throughout the day so easy. I used to al

I bought a badger2040 recently. I mainly wanted it for the ebook feature. A pocket-sized eInk device could make reading throughout the day so easy. I used to always have a paper book in my back pocket before phones. Anyway, it's a great device with one small caveat. None of the GPIO pins are exposed, the only IO is buttons, usbc or a QT/Stemma connector. This would all be fine by me, except that there is only about 1mg of free space on the device. Doing any serious reading would require me to use external memory and without GPIO I can't do that. Making a few pins accessible would make attaching an SD card completely trivial.

niutech 4y ago
You can use an I2C SD Card Module: http://www.technoblogy.com/show?3Y2L http://www.technoblogy.com/show?3Y2L or use zlib to compress text data: https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/zlib.html https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/zlib.html
adolph 4y ago
You might be interested in the Serial Wombat which can expose gpio as as I2C, for which it has pads on the back. https://www.serialwombat.com/
karmanyaahm 4y ago
Because the RP2040 is so dynamic, the QT/Stemma connector is two GPIO pins, even thought it can do I2C or SPI.
- schwartzworld 4y ago
  Are you saying interfacing with an SD card should be possible using only 2 pins? https://content.instructables.com/FJT/PT8T/KROXES4A/FJTPT8TKROXES4A.jpg https://content.instructables.com/FJT/PT8T/KROXES4A/FJTPT8TK...
  - karmanyaahm 4y ago
    No, I was simply replying to: > none of the GPIO pins are exposed, the only IO is buttons, usbc or a QT/Stemma connector. Sorry for losing context.
whiskers 4y ago
If you look at the back of the badger you'll see that we put a set of pads to solder to for GPIO! It also has a "Qw/ST" connector (STEMMA + Qwiic) that exposes an I2C bus so is ideal for adding sensors, or you could bash on an IO expander for a heap more pins!
- schwartzworld 4y ago
  Sensors don't fit my use case, but I can't believe I didn't notice those pads. I'll see if I can make them work. I don't believe that SD cards can be interfaced with over i2c. If I were you guys I would consider having a built in SD reader in version 2.0, as it would add a lot of value.
  - niutech 4y ago
    It should be possible with Badger 2040 W: https://github.com/pimoroni/badger2040/issues/3 https://github.com/pimoroni/badger2040/issues/3

niutech 4y ago

You can use an I2C SD Card Module: http://www.technoblogy.com/show?3Y2L http://www.technoblogy.com/show?3Y2L or use zlib to compress text data: https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/zlib.html https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/zlib.html

adolph 4y ago

You might be interested in the Serial Wombat which can expose gpio as as I2C, for which it has pads on the back. https://www.serialwombat.com/

karmanyaahm 4y ago

Because the RP2040 is so dynamic, the QT/Stemma connector is two GPIO pins, even thought it can do I2C or SPI.

schwartzworld 4y ago
Are you saying interfacing with an SD card should be possible using only 2 pins? https://content.instructables.com/FJT/PT8T/KROXES4A/FJTPT8TKROXES4A.jpg https://content.instructables.com/FJT/PT8T/KROXES4A/FJTPT8TK...
- karmanyaahm 4y ago
  No, I was simply replying to: > none of the GPIO pins are exposed, the only IO is buttons, usbc or a QT/Stemma connector. Sorry for losing context.

whiskers 4y ago

If you look at the back of the badger you'll see that we put a set of pads to solder to for GPIO! It also has a "Qw/ST" connector (STEMMA + Qwiic) that exposes an I2C bus so is ideal for adding sensors, or you could bash on an IO expander for a heap more pins!

schwartzworld 4y ago
Sensors don't fit my use case, but I can't believe I didn't notice those pads. I'll see if I can make them work. I don't believe that SD cards can be interfaced with over i2c. If I were you guys I would consider having a built in SD reader in version 2.0, as it would add a lot of value.
- niutech 4y ago
  It should be possible with Badger 2040 W: https://github.com/pimoroni/badger2040/issues/3 https://github.com/pimoroni/badger2040/issues/3