“Very interesting board used to control neopixel leds. It would be nice if you could implement serial communication using the appropriate pins. Then you could, for example, control via bluetooth. I was able to use only I2C. I recommend”
“I think this is the 4th one of these magic little devices I have bought and now that I have found out how to interface it to a Sparkfun Alphanumeric display, with considerable help from the Pimoroni support crew, it is even better. Highly recommended, both the device and the support I have received.”
“Brilliant! Just enough buttons to add some extra control and it powers the RGB strip I have attached through the USB C connection. Easy to program. I added a 'USB-A to USB-C Cable with On/Off Switch' from The Pi Hut to add an inline on/off switch. I'll be back for another!”
“If you’re new to microcontroller development, or just looking for the simplest hassle-free solution for developing a programmable LED strip device, this is very likely to be the microcontroller board for the job. However if you’ve already had experience with Pico / Arduino / Teensy etc and don’t mind putting in a little extra effort then you may want to save your money and buy a Pi Pico instead.
Compared to a Pico the Plasma gives you (among a couple of other things) a dedicated led strip connector, a built-in RGB led, 3 extra buttons, USB-C for extra power, a current sensing circuit, a Qw/ST connector, and an LDO for powering 5V LED strips instead of just 3.3V, all in a compact package. However this comes at an extra cost of £10 (almost 4x the cost), and especially considering not all of these features will be needed by you then this isn’t the cheapest option. Also the board doesn’t give you access to as many pins of the microcontroller pins, limiting its functionality and usefulness compared to a Pico.
Though at the almost half price sale price I bought this at, even as an experienced developer I found this to be worth the purchase, just for the extra simplicity and compact form factor.”
“I have bought a few Plasma 2040's so far and they have been absolutely rock solid. My only hope is to see a wireless version (ala Pico W). Add Wifi and I'm likely to buy at least a small handful to make my RGB strips a bit cleverer.”
