Comments on: Programming Raspberry Pi Pico with Arduino IDE (Pico W compatible)

By: Steven Sarns

Steven Sarns — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 12:37:49 +0000

Thank you for the comprehensive analysis of the Pi Pico / Arduino IDE. I recently started a Pi Pico project with MicroPython and was making great progress until I attempted to process optical encoder driven interrupts at ~1kHz rate. Total disaster! Interrupts are apparently queued and would not be processed until some time later, then suddenly a pile of them would be processed. I have snorkled around the internet and cannot find a simple example of an interrupt attached to a pin in Arduino. Please consider this simple request. Thanks!

By: me

me — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 20:24:21 +0000

noone talk about having 2 setup and 2 loop running at same time. can share data between both.
speed is amazingly wonderful.
i was nano and micro user but now using almost only pico.

By: Sara Santos

Sara Santos — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 09:38:10 +0000

In reply to paul.

Hi.
From that error, it’s impossible to find out what’s wrong.
We need more relevant information.
Regards,
Sara

By: paul

paul — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 02:43:42 +0000

Installing on RPi 5: Blink returns error: Arduino: 1.8.19 (Linux), Board: “Raspberry Pi Pico”
“An error occurred uploading the sketch”. Verbose output is is huge.

By: Sara Santos

Sara Santos — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 15:07:22 +0000

In reply to Eric.

Hi.
Usually, I only need to do that on the first upload if the board was not previously running an Arduino program.
After running a program with ARduino IDE, usually I don’t need to do that afterwards.
Regards,
Sara

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 08:50:33 +0000

Excellent job and excellent site with clear tutorials. Many thanks to you.
Between each upload My Pico2040 needs plug-unplug USB (sort of power on/off).
Hereafter how I work around the problem.
-Do not plug USB
-Press and hold Bootloader button
-Plug USB
-Release Bootloader button
-(a window appears with: INDEX.HTM and INFO_UF2.TXT)
-Upload the program (Arduino 1.8.19, usual Blink)

-It works !

If somebody has the solution to avoid plug-unplug USB, please let me know.

I am using MATE-64bits on top of RPi-4.
Again many thanks for this excellent work
Eric

By: Sara Santos

Sara Santos — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 09:14:04 +0000

In reply to Arno.

Hi.
We’ll start by covering the most basic subjects, and then, we’ll start covering also MQTT and other IoT subjects.
Regards,
Sara

By: Arno

Arno — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 19:51:08 +0000

I’m looking forward to articles on the Pico. I hope you include more advanced techniques beyond the standard fare. My interests are in interrupts and handling, dual core, maybe some effective PIO, reliably reading optical encoders, etc, beyond blinking LEDs and pushing buttons.

I like the ease-of-use of using mbed on the Arduino interface, but I like the improved capabilities of the Philhower port C/C++ on VSCode, too.

By: Hi

Hi — Sat, 05 Aug 2023 14:38:34 +0000

Thanks a lot for the tutorial. After scratching my head for 3 days with the official board Mbed OS, I was finally able to run arduino c++ on my Pico W! Well done!

By: DBrion

DBrion — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 13:43:35 +0000

In reply to Ovid.

There are -at least – two ways of having assembly code in ArduinoIDE:
gcc/g++ can cope with in line assembly : https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/extensions-to-the-c-language-family/how-to-use-inline-assembly-language-in-c-code.html .
If you have a C (c++) function called main -it is a reserved word for arduino- which countains “only” assembly, one can -theoretically : I bet nobody dared it – program Arduino in assembly : Arduino wonot generate a main -it usually does- , and, if there are no libraries (#include , tt being a library which makes things easier), your code wonot be bloated at all… but it might take a long time to have something working : just selecting a clock is very difficult in an ARM -system clock is selectable, frequency is tunable…) ; USB software is complicated, too; Z80 did not have these issues).

Other soulution is having a file called whatItsName.S ; .S extension is real assembly arm-gas (comes with binutils, parts of Arduino) file; Things can be more terrible than the 1rst option…

You should ask youself what “bloated” means:
* you can have a lot of sleeping code (some libraries are linked, and are useless to … blink a LED); but flash memory is huge w/r Z80 standards. Even if there are tons of unusuded libraries, time to fill the flash with one’s code and constants w=cannot be neglected.

you can hav a very short code and …. unused flash…

Did you know that picopi have automata -called PIO- , which can be programmed in -a kind of- assembly. Number of that “assembly” -used to bit bang on a dedicated automata/tiny extra processor- SPI/I2C, if needed, say- lines is small (< 30 IIRC).

It can be used from micropython
digikey.com/en/maker/projects/raspberry-pi-pico-and-rp2040-micropython-part-3-pio/3079f9f9522743d09bb65997642e0831
and from the SDK
digikey.co.uk/en/maker/projects/raspberry-pi-pico-and-rp2040-cc-part-3-how-to-use-pio/123ff7700bc547c79a504858c1bd8110 +official documentation

EarlePhilower pico port, which is shown in this nice blob, seems to support PIOs, too github.com/earlephilhower/arduino-pico/blob/master/cores/rp2040/pio_uart.pio