Pseudonymous maker “picoLemon” has constructed a growth board designed to ease working with a number of Raspberry Pi RP2040 and RP2350 microcontrollers — delivering simultaneous debugging throughout 4 Serial Wire Debug (SWD) ports: the MultiProbe Pico Debugger.
“[The] MultiProbe Pico Debugger [is] a growth board to debug a number of [Raspberry Pi] Pico units, based mostly on the official Debug Probe,” picoLemon explains of the instrument. “Any RP2040 or RP2350 gadget can [also] be used, see [the schematics] for the GPIO [General-Purpose Input/Output pin] assignments or order a PCB out of your favourite PCB provider.”
Uninterested in debugging initiatives one after the other? The MultiProbe Pico Debugger permits you to deal with 4 on the similar time. (📷: picoLemon)
The board itself is impressed by the Raspberry Pi Debug Probe, a Serial Wire Debug (SWD) instrument launched again in February 2023 and primarily constructed with the Raspberry Pi Pico household in thoughts because the gadget beneath take a look at. Along with the devoted debug board, Raspberry Pi additionally launched a firmware to transform any Raspberry Pi Pico growth board right into a Debug Probe — one thing picoLemon additionally helps for the fourfold-enlarged MultiProbe Pico Debugger.
The MultiProbe supplies 4 lively SWD ports on a single USB connection, its creator claims, permitting for 4 units beneath take a look at to be focused concurrently. There are additionally 4 UART serial buses, although these are multiplexed to 2 communication ports — and indicator LEDs allow you to see precisely which port is lively. There’s assist for utilizing the debugger in Linux, Apple’s macOS, and Microsoft’s Home windows, although picoLemon warns the latter requires a driver workaround and isn’t formally supported on the time of writing.
The gadget is supported on Linux and macOS, with Home windows compatibility for those who fiddle with some drivers a bit. (📷: picoLemon)
“There are additionally some limitation[s] on which UARTs can be utilized collectively,” picoLemon notes, “because the RP2350 has exhausting limits on which pins the UART might be assigned [to]. The {hardware} UART should be completely different, so for instance UART1 and UART3 can’t be used on the similar time; in that case you’ll have to swap the ports. Future variations will use a PIO [Programmable Input/Output] based mostly UART which resolves this restriction and/or having 4 CDC units.”
KiCad challenge recordsdata, Gerbers, and firmware supply code for the MultiProbe Pico Debugger have been printed on GitHub beneath the permissive MIT license; fully-assembled boards can be found to order on picoLemon’s Tindie retailer at $46.
