Big Button - Part 4 - Connecting Programming Hardware

Fri, Jan 3, 2025

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4 min read

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Table of Contents

Introduction

đź’» HACKER The goal of this post is to connect all of the hardware needed to start programming. We will lay out all needed hardware, carefully explain each, and show how each connects.

Hardware Needed

  1. A computer running Linux, MacOS, or Windows
  2. Raspberry Pi Pico W
  3. Raspberry Pi Pico Debug Probe
  4. Raspberry Pi Pico Breakout Board - For Development and Testing

NOTE

Remember, all items needed for this entire project are listed in the previous post.

Soldering Header Pins

Before we can connect the debug probe to the Raspberry Pi Pico W, we will have to ensure that the Raspberry Pi Pico W has 3 header pins soldered onto its debug pin output as shown below. The debug probe will connect to these 3 header pins.

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Figure: A Raspberry Pi Pico W with its 3 header pins connected to the debug probe

Your Raspberry Pi Pico W should come with the header pin included. However, if you do not have it, you can order it here.

Before soldering the header pins into place, ensure they are positioned correctly. While there are a variety different ways to set this up, given the suggested soldering station from the previous station, here is an option to do that.

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Figure: A Raspberry Pi Pico W and 3 header pin held by soldering station helping hands

Next solder the 3 header pins onto the Pico. For reference here is a great soldering tutorial to get you started on how to solder header pins in general.

WARNING

If you have not soldered before, please be very careful with a hot soldering iron. Please use all necessary safety precautions. In addition, feel free to test your soldering skills on something else before soldering the Raspberry Pi Pico W.

Breakout Board

Let’s place the Raspberry Pi Pico W into the breakout board. Orient the Pico the correct way, carefully place all of the Pico’s pins into the breakout board’s connectors, and gently and evenly press the pico into the breakout board.

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Figure: A Raspberry Pi Pico W placed onto a breakout board for development

Connecting the Debug Probe

Now that we have all pieces ready, we are able to connect the debug probe. The debug probe should come with a USB cable and a cable that connects its JST-SH connector to a female 3-pin connector (see here).

We will first connect the debug probe module to the Raspberry Pi Pico W header pins we soldered in the previous section. As we are connecting the header pins, we will be looking at the Pico from the top, where the Pico’s USB connection is on top.

The pins are connected as follows:

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Figure: A Raspberry Pi debug probe connected to a Pico W and your computer

NOTE

On the debug probe, we are only connecting the DAP (Debug Adapter Protocol) (marked as D) connection and not the Serial UART connection (marked as U). We will be not be using the serial UART wire to upload anything to the Pico.

Next, connect the debug probe and also the Raspberry Pi Pico W to your computer’s USB port. Note that you will obviously need two open USB A ports on your computer. However, you may want to use some kind of USB hub in order to combine these into one single USB input or into a USB C port.

Below is the entire setup. Note that I am using a small piece of tape between the debug probe cable and the Raspberry Pi Pico W USB output. Also there is a tie to tie together the USB cables.

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Figure: The entire setup with some cable management ready to be plugged in!

NOTE

Remember, instead of using the debug probe we could also use a second Raspberry Pi Pico that connects to our main Pico and the computer. More information can be found here. This effectively loads up the debugprobe firmware onto the second Pico

References

OK! On to check if this thing even works …