Not content material with the measly 583 RGB LEDs supplied by Galactic Unicorn, UK Raspberry Pi reseller Pimoroni has introduced Cosmic Unicorn which sees 1,024 RGB LEDs in an 8 inch sq. grid. All of that is powered by our favourite microcontroller, the Raspberry Pi Pico W
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Cosmic Unicorn differs from Galactic Unicorn in a couple of key areas. Firstly, the form. Gone is the lengthy “lozenge” form in favor of an 8 x 8 inch sq. (204 x 204 x 10.2 mm) which packs a grid of 32 x 32 RGB LEDs. For many who know their Math, 32 x 32 is 1,024, and that’s the variety of RGB LEDs that we’ve at our command. That is a rise of 441 LEDs over Galactic Unicorn.
Powering the sunshine present is a Raspberry Pi Pico W which is floor mount soldered to the rear of the board. Utilizing the PIO (Programmable IO) of the Pico W, these LEDs are up to date at 300 fps with 14-bit precision. What does that imply? Nicely now you may exhibit your Cosmic Unicorn in movies with none strobing or brightness points. Different RGB LEDs can wreak havoc along with your fastidiously choreographed movies.
Spinning the board round and we’re introduced with a jaw dropping silkscreen of a whale. Dotted across the perimeter are buttons to regulate which program is run on the board, brightness, sleep and quantity. Following on from Galactic Unicorn, Cosmic additionally has an onboard amp and speaker for fundamental beeps and chip tunes. Must you need to be on the bleeding edge, there may be additionally some experimental firmware for Bluetooth performance. With Blunicorn firmware, each Cosmic and Galactic Unicorns can develop into visualizers to your music.
If you wish to use Cosmic Unicorn as a part of an experiment, say accumulating air high quality or temperature information, then the onboard QW/ST (Stemma QT, Qwiic connector) is out there so that you can join a plethora of sensors to.
Cosmic Unicorn has simply gone on sale for £80 ($75) from Pimoroni and we can have a evaluation coming quickly.