I recently received my Tufty 2040 and have been trying to follow the instructions given in the Pimoroni tutorial by Hel Gibbons. The example programme appear OK but when I install the tufty .uf2 file and open Thonny, it says it can’t autodetect the device. If I then open the “Configure Interpreter”, there is no port shown and I get the following messages:
Micropython (Raspberry Pi Pico)
Details
Connect your device to the computer and select corresponding port below*
(look for your device name, “USB Serial” or “UART”).*
If you can’t find it, you may need to install proper USB driver first.*
I am using a MacBook Pro running Monterey 12.5.1. If my problem is USB, where do I get a “proper USB driver” from. If not, any advice would be welcome. I should say that as an act of desperation I have run the “nuke” facility to start again and in the process of course have lost the pre-loaded examples. The tutorial says these are recoverable from Github but from where exactly?
I don’t have a Mac I’m afraid so can’t give you advice with that specific error, but as a starting point it might be worth trying upgrading your Thonny version to the latest - Thonny 4.0.0 was released a couple of days ago and it seems to include a lot of improvements to how it autodetects devices. The new version might not have hit all package managers yet but you can download it from the Thonny website: https://thonny.org/
Thank you Hel for your comments. I am afraid Thonny 4.0.0 didn’t help but before I upgraded I tried a condition under the “Configure Interpreter” panel which mentions USB (but I can’t recall the exact wording). Anyway selecting this mode allowed communication and I had managed to find the location of the tufty .py programmes and copied them back to the tufty so it is now in (roughly) the same condition as when shipped. I am about to start experimenting with creating my own badge with an embedded image! Wish me luck !
Perhaps you can help me with this. I have created a re-sized image for use in my Tufty using GIMP and exported it as a non-progressive .jpeg. It appears in my personal folder on my MacBook but I don’t seem able to copy it into the RP2040 file area in Thonny. GIMP appears not to let me save it to RP2040 directly so I am at a loss as to how to get the file there. Any advice please? I have tried simply dragging and dropping within Thonny but it appears not to support that and all variations of “Copy and Save” but to no avail. From various messages that have appeared while I have been trying I assume that a copy of the .jpeg file must be located in the RP2040 file area for it to be useable by Tufty.
Sorry her, just re-read your tutorial and noticed the “Upload to/” comment which works a treat. Sorry if I have wasted your time. One more question has just come to mind, is there any way of selectively removing files from the RP2040 file area?
Thanks Hel, found it myself a little later. I really must start reading things properly before I come troubling you guys!!! Having said that, one more question; the files in the Tufty appear on the opening screen in alphabetical order (determined within main.py). Is there any SIMPLE way of overriding this and making the list order anything I want (other than preceeding the name by “A”, “B”, “C” etc? Everything else is going very well and I think the tufty is a superb little piece of kit ! I have been very impressed by both the Plasma2040 and Tufty; just make little cases for them (Tufty including the battery box) and I will quite happily give Pimoroni 11 out of 10! Thanks again for your efforts.
I don’t mind the alphabetical order part, it would be nice to pick which is the default selection on boot up though. Have it default to the one your going to be using most often, with the option to go up down if need be to select another option. I poked around the main.py file but didn’t see any obvious way to do that.
Have to agree with alphanumeric that being able to have a default selection would be an ideal compromise. I shall continue to look at main.py but the chances of me able to solve the problem are remote in the extreme! I’ve done the “noddy” thing as I described above; not elegant but it works for me.