I want to use a Pimoroni Plus (can only add 2 links to a post, but it’s a RP2350 microcontroller in the form factor of a Raspberry Pi Pico) with a pico audio pack but I also want to add an SD card reader (something like this: MicroSD card breakout board+ : ID 254 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits) . But it looks like the audio pack will use all of the pins? Is there a workaround to this, or am I locked out of adding anything else if I use the Pico Audio Pack?
Thanks!
The Audio Pack covers up all the pins, but doesn’t use all of them.
The schematic will show you what pins are used.
dac-headphone.sch
This will get you access to the unused pins. And its compatible with a Pico Plus 2 or 2w.
Pico Omnibus (Dual Expander)
This may also help you sort it out.
Raspberry Pi Pico GPIO Pinout
The Pico Audio Pack uses only four pins, so with all the links that @alphanumeric provided you can find some spare pins for the SD-card breakout. You need one set of SPI pins plus the chip-select pin (CS). Since the Pico (and compatible) provide SPI on many pins, there is no problem once you gain access to the pins.
Depending on what you want to do, it might be easier to use a different audio-breakout. The Pico Audio Pack is basically a PCM5100A which converts digital I2S audio signals to analog signals. The trick of the Audio Pack is to provide two outputs: one direct output which you can feed into an amplifier, and one output that routes the signal from the PCM5100A to an on-board mini-amplifier. The latter signal can drive headphones directly.
You can find many small cheap audio DAC boards that don’t plug directly into the Pico and don’t cover all the pins. Things I used: MAX98357A, or Adafruit PCM5102 I2S DAC with Line Level Output
The chips are all widely used and you will find many sellers that provide these kind of breakouts. But you don’t have the simplicity that the Audio Pack offers.
One last thing to note: I recommend CircuitPython if you want to play music, since MicroPython does not support MP3. Of course you could convert your music to WAV and play it, but this is an extra step.
