One of our favorite aspects of Raspberry Pi boards is the fact that they’re open source. With that comes a great deal of flexibility and today we mean that literally! We came across a really neat Kickstarter project posted by TOP Gadgets which aims to provide Raspberry Pi Pico boards on a totally flexible PCB known as the FlexPi. The FlexPi board is just like the original Raspberry Pi Pico but with a few minor upgrades. Instead of your usual stiff PCB, this one can flex in any direction which makes it easy to fit inside of tight spaces and curved cases.
The team was asking for $500 USD to get the project off the ground and has already surpassed their goal with a current pledge total of over $5,000 USD. It’s important to note, however, that because this is a Kickstarter project, supporting it is more like an investment and does not guarantee you will receive a final product. Proceed with caution when throwing your hard-earned money at projects like these, no matter how cool they seem.
The form factor is very close to the original Pico along with most of the specs. That said, it comes with a few changes including a programmable RGB LED and a USB Type-C port. The most basic package costs $20 USD and nets you not only a FlexPi but also three starter guides covering the Raspberry Pi Pico, MicroPython, and Circuit Python.
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With those differences in mind, you can expect to find an RP2040 microprocessor along with 2MB of onboard flash. It has 26 GPIO like the original Pico as well as 264kB of SRAM. The FlexPi is USB 1.1 compatible and accepts voltage ranges between 1.8V and 5.5V. The RGB LED is a WS2812 LED.
Like the original Pico, you can program it just the same using drag and drop with a UF2 bootloader. You’ve got quite a few options when it comes to programming the Pico including MicroPython, Circuit Python, C, C++, and even Arduino code. You’ve pretty much got a regular Pico on your hands with a tad more flexibility.
If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project, check out the official FlexPi page over at Kickstarter.
