The niftiest peripheral on the RP2040 chip is called ‘pio’ – a programmable state machine that can handle streams of bitbang data. One of the first demos for pio is to drive NeoPixels (a.k.a ws2812 addressable LEDs) since they use a single pulse-width encoding scheme which often requires a lot of bitbanging or clever timer+DMA. this feather takes our fab RP2040 feather and adds a vertical JST SH, then removes the SWD header, enshrinkens a bunch of parts, to make room for an 8 pin header that is 5V-shifted-and-buffered with an 74AHCT245 with the 8 GPIO in consecutive order on the port. it uses every single pin on the RP2040 and should work great for neopixels, dotstars, etc. we still need a name for this board so we’ll be contemplating that while pondering our orb this weekend.

Names with octo and all that are getting tossed around, so if ya have a great idea/name for it, let us know.

ps. we have more pink Feather RP2040’s in stock now thanks to a fresh PCB delivery 🙂 get one free when you order $99 or more from adafruit https://www.adafruit.com/product/5299