• sales

    +86-0755-88291180

Raspberry Pi Pico-Audio User Guide

Overview

The Pico-Audio is an audio expansion module designed for Raspberry Pi Pico, which incorporates PCM5101A low power stereo decoder, and uses I2S bus for transmitting the audio signals. It supports a wide range of audio sampling rates, allows headphone and speaker signal output at the same time.

Features

  • Standard Raspberry Pi Pico header supports Raspberry Pi Pico series
  • Standard 3.5mm audio jack, for connecting an external headphone
  • Dual channels speaker headers, for direct driving speakers
  • 8~384000Hz audio sampling rate
  • Stereo sound effect output
  • Using 3-wire I2S, effectively reducing EMI

Specification

  • operating voltage: 5V
  • Audio Decoder: PCM5101A
  • DAC SNR: 106 dB
  • Logic level: 3.3V
  • Audio bus: I2S
  • Speaker driving: 2.6W/channel (4ohm BTL)


Dimension


I2S

The most important thing to note about the I2S protocol is that it takes the second clock after the change of the sampling pulse as the first bit of data, and the first clock after the change of the following sampling pulse as the last bit of data。
LRCK: Audio data word clock input, when it is low level for the left channel data acquisition, when it is high level for the right channel data acquisition.
BCK: Audio data bit clock input, when it produces a rise edge jump to collect data, the frequency must be 32 or 48 or 64 times the frequency of LRCK.
DATA: Audio data input, note that the data is signed data, data transmission can choose 16-bit, 24-bit, 32-bit data, high in the front, low in the back.

Hardware connection

Please take care of the direction when connect the board to Pico according to the USB port.
You can also wire it according to the table

PCM5101APicoDescription
VSYSVSYSPower input(5V)
3V3(OUT)3V3(OUT)Logic level(3.3V)
GNDGNDGround
DINGPIO26Audio data input
BCkGPIO27Audio data bit clock input
LRCKGPIO28Audio data word clock input


600px

Download examples

Open a terminal of Raspberry Pi and run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install p7zip-full
cd ~
sudo wget  https://www.waveshare.com/w/upload/7/7c/Pico_Audio.7z 
7z x Pico_Audio.7z -o./Pico-Audio
cd ~/Pico_Audio

There are two folders in the Pico_Audio directory, The Pico_Audio includes the examples of Audio output example. In the usb_sound_card folder, the sound driver file (.uf2) is saved, which you should copy to the Pico.

cp usb_sound_card.uf2  /media/pi/RPI-RP2/

Run examples

C codes

  • Go into the Pico-Audio directory and build the codes.
cd ~/Pico_Audio/Pico-Audio/

Create and go into the build folder, add the path of SDK:
../../pico-sdk is the default path of SDK, you need to modify it if the actual path is different in your pi.
We have created the build folder in example, you can just enter it.

cd build
export PICO_SDK_PATH=../../pico-sdk

Run cmake to generate Makefile file

cmake ..

Run make command to build the codes

make -j9

After building, the uf2 file is generated.
Press and hold the key on the Pico board to connect the Pico to the USB port of the computer through the Micro USB cable, then release the key. After plugging in, the computer will automatically recognize a removable disk (RPI-RP2). Copy the audio_firmware.uf2 file in the build folder to the removable disk (RPI-RP2) recognized.

cp audio_firmware.uf2  /media/pi/RPI-RP2/
TAG: Raspberry Pi Pico 2 RP2350 industrial 6-ch Relay RS485 isolation protection ESP32-S3 A7670E 4G development board supports LTE Cat-1/2G/GNSS positioning/WiFi/Bluetooth BG95-M3-Zero QuecPython EVB development support LTE/EGPRS and GNSS Raspberry Pi 5 Cooling RK3566 ESP32-S3 AI 1.54-inch e-Paper Ink Screen 1.54inch Display AIoT Development Board Deepseek Raspberry Pi 5 CR2032 ESP32 S3 AI 1.75 inch Development Board with 1.75inch AMOLED Touchscreen Round Screen Deepseek Serial UART Bus Servo ST3020 TTL 25KG.CM Magnetic-Encoder High precision and Large torque Arduino 0.96inch RGB OLED ESP32-P4 DEV-KIT C6 WiFi6 MIPI DSI 7/10.1 inch Display/CSI Camera/Audio Speaker For AI Deepseek Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 PoE BASE A IO Board RJ45 For CM5 Lite/eMMC Raspberry Pi CM5 Compute Module 5 Dual Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 Expansion IO Base Board DeepSeek XiaoZhi AI Voice Chat Robot BOX ESP32-S3 Development Board 3.5 inch QSPI LCD N16R8 Touchscreen Display 6-Axis /Camera /SD RP2040 Raspberry Pi Autofocus Camera ESP32 S3 AI 4.3inch (C) Industrial Development Board 4.3 inch TouchScreen Display Sensor CAN I2C RS485 DeepSeek ESP32 S3 Development Board 2.8 inch Round LCD Display 480x480 QMI8658 Sensor / SD /MP3 Audio /Battery Port LVGL/HMI For Arduino 0.99inch JSON Command Meaning