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picopowered

Created by [nimit vijayvargee] • Started on June 17, 2025

Versatile dev board for a pico replacement!

Day 1 - 17th June

Time spent: 2 Hours
Researched RP2040 Hardware documentation and the Pico Datasheets for reference. Began laying out the schematic on KiCad. I also used my mom's work printer to print the RP2040 Hardawre docs to read through. I selected a few of the specific components to use like the specific 12MHz crystal and the QSPI Flash Chip. image image

Day 2 - 18th June

Time spent: 1 Hour
Completed the Powerchain and QSPI Flash chip. Did a bit of digging on the footprint for the Abracon 12MHz crystal. Did a bit or organizing on my schematics to make them more readable than even the Pico docs. image

Day 3 - 19th June

Time spent: 2 Hours
Took a printout of the original Pico 1 to compare my designs, also added the crystals and GPIO headers! Almost ready to begin the routing. image image image

Day 4 - 20th June

Time spent: 2 Hours
Finished up the schematic and made it look pretty! Set up footprints and added the components to the PCB. Also fixed some values in the capacitors. The component layouts took some time. image image

Neet to take some measurements before I can actually start tracing.

Day 5 - 21st June

Time spent: 4 Hours
Experimented with a lot of routing methods and component placements. Fixed footprints to smaller version (5050 LED -> 2020 LED, smaller caps, etc.). Researched on a lot of electrical requirements to make a ground plane work. Did a lot of routing, deletion and more routing. Power spike caused Kicad to delete the saved work causing me to restart the PCB the following day.

Day 6 - 22nd June

Time spent: 5 Hours
Cotinued difference combinations of routing and component placements. However, a power spike caused me to lose the progress over the previous day. Schematic was autosaved and recovered so i was able to replace all components, reroute and prepare for fabrication. Started designing silkscreen art! image image image

Day 7 - 23rd June

Time spent: 2 Hours
Finished Silkscreen with cool arrows and a logo! Prepared some files for production. Added some labels to the Powerchain, Crystal clock and the GPIO pin numbers on the neopixel and user button.

Day 8 - 25th June

Time spent: 1 Hour
Prepared BOM and Gerbers for JLC and readied submission for highway :D