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Pico 2 W Board Support + Current Design Photos

Added the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W (RP2350) as a third target board alongside the original Pico W and ESP32-S3. The Pico 2 W is now the default development board for Dilder. Also captured photos of the current Rev 2 build running Sassy Octopus.

Pico 2 W — What Changed

The Pico 2 W has an identical 40-pin header to the Pico W, so it's a physical drop-in replacement. Same wiring, same display, same joystick. The differences are under the hood:

  • RP2350 dual Cortex-M33 cores @ 150MHz (vs RP2040 Cortex-M0+ @ 133MHz)
  • 4MB flash (vs 2MB)
  • 520KB SRAM (vs 264KB)
  • ARM TrustZone, secure boot, OTP

Gotchas We Hit

Three issues that weren't obvious from the datasheet:

BOOTSEL drive is RP2350, not RPI-RP2. Every script that looked for the RPI-RP2 USB mass storage label failed silently. Updated find_rpi_rp2_mount() in both the DevTool and setup CLI to search for both labels.

No hardware RTC. The RP2350 removed the Real-Time Clock peripheral entirely. hardware/rtc.h, datetime_t, and the rtc_*() functions don't exist. Created rtc_compat.h that provides a software fallback using time_us_64() on RP2350 while passing through to real hardware on RP2040.

CMake cache poisoning. If you built for pico_w and then switch to pico2_w, the cached PICO_PLATFORM=rp2040 causes a fatal error. Added auto-detection that wipes the build directory when the platform mismatches.

Current Design Photos

The Rev 2 enclosure running Sassy Octopus on a Pico 2 W:

Dilder assembled — front view

Dilder assembled — three-quarter angle

Display Close-Up

The 250x122 e-ink display showing the RTC clock header, animated octopus sprite, speech bubble with quote, and tagline. All rendered in firmware — no PC connection needed.

Display close-up — Sassy Octopus

Case Parts

Top cover with display window inlay and joystick port, base plate with solar panel cutout, and battery cradle insert.

Case parts disassembled

DevTool Integration

Select "Pico 2 W (RP2350)" from the board dropdown and everything adapts — flash utility shows RP2350 drive detection, builds use the correct CMake flag, Docker passes PICO_BOARD=pico2_w, documentation and connection wizard text all update dynamically.

What's Next

  • Test all 16 octopus personalities on Pico 2 W
  • Joystick PCB integration with the K1-1506SN-01 switch
  • Solar charging evaluation with the AK 62x36 panel