StackyPi Review: A Raspberry Pi Zero Sized RP2040 Board

The StackyPi from SB Components is a Raspberry Pi RP2040 powered board featuring the Raspberry Pi Zero form factor. This is a really interesting board however it comes in at an price of £14 and doesn't bring much value, as we discuss. It features plenty of user input and expansion in the form of a Raspberry Pi 40 Pin header. It has 8MB of onboard flash storage for your programs and two user buttons and two LEDs and that is about it. The board comes in at 65mm x 30mm x 10mm.

The RP2040 chip supports 4 12-bit ADC channels (4 are user inputs and one measures internal temperature), two UARTs, two SPI and I2C controllers. It also has 8 PIO state machines, USB 1.1 host and device support and 16 PWM channels. Programming any of these Waveshare RP2040 boards is exactly the same as programming the Pico. It can be programmed using the Raspberry Pi RP2040 SDK. Just press the boot select button whilst plugging the USB-C cable in and drag and drop the UF2 file onto the KB2040. It will then reboot and run your program! It can also be programmed in MicroPython and CircuitPython.

You can purchase the StackyPi at the following link:

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:27 Pricing
01:11 Dimensions
02:23 Features
05:43 Thoughts and Conclusions

Take a look at some other RP2040 boards covered here:

-- Equipment I use regularly --
The following links are affiliate links where I may make a small percentage on qualifying sales through these links. Use the respective UK or US links listed.

All videos and tutorials on this channel and mentioned websites are for educational purposes only.

[kavinxavier]

Hi, can you please make a video on how to connect an IO expander to a pico to make a macro keyboard with 30 keys

[stephenvalente]

I originally backed the Kickstarter for this project, but pulled out, even at the lower price of £9/unit. Just didn't feel there was a lot to gain for the money.

[Dygear]

Love that the GPIO pins are compatible. Less impressed with the misslabling of the flash but 8MB is still pretty good (and I think per the spec sheet is actually the most the RP2040 can use.) and the deal breaker is having this not being able to fit into Zero cases. That’s a shame.

[mariusmeyer]

I must assume that the megabyte typo was no typo as I pointed the mistake out to them during the Kickstarter campaign and they didn’t change it anywhere.

[_bits]

It's great there is interest in designing and marketing these boards. Your comments are unbiased and factually correct, but perhaps a bit harsh. Maybe you could reach out to them and make a quick follow up video with their feedback?

[blaser]

On pricing I think you should have used RS components as LCSC prices do not include all the import charges levied by the UK government. I've made a few projects using LCSC and usually it's at least an extra 22.5% + handling fees, so now I use RS components as all the costs are upfront. Does the board state where it was manufactured? as that will affect pricing.

[HighfireX]

This is useful to me because I don't have the place to solder myself. I bought only one for the convenience of the pins (including swd and sclk) and built in microsd, something which the Sparkthing-RP2040 plus has. Price could go down a little bit. Note you can still power this with battery if needed, so it has that going for it. From now on though I'll learn how to solder myself, more cost effective to use original Raspberry Picos.

[Keeping_IT_Simple]

Go mine through the Kickstarter - your video has just reminded me that i should actually get it out of its oversize box to try sooner rather than later?

have bought several of their products in the past - generally very pleased with build quality . on-going Documentation / example code can be slightly lacking i find

In your link to buy this you have put " Badger 2040" instead of " stackyPi" by the way