Picoconnect

If you have more than one Raspi Pico connected to a computer, things can get confusing. Which Pico is on which port? Maybe the name of the ports have even changed since the last time you connected, so noting the port names is no solution. Pycoconnector is a Python library that helps to find a defined Pico, execute commands on it etc.)

Working principle

Each Pico has a file info.txt in the root folder. The first line of this file contains a keyword under which the Pico can be found. The picoconnector_xx.py lib has functions to find this and connect. I have described this in more detail here: [website] http://staff.ltam.lu/feljc/electronics/uPython/Pico_communication.pdf

Code example

from picoconnector_01 import scan_for_picos, scan_picoinfo, Pico
import time


if __name__ == "__main__":
    
    ''' You can have info on all Picos connected'''
    picos = scan_for_picos()
    
    
    #scan_picoinfo()
    
    
    '''You can connect to one special Pico
    This must contain the keyword in the first line of a file info.txt
    on the Pico'''
    keyword = 'PWMgenerator_02'
    ##keyword = ''      #-> first Pico found with or without info.txt
    mypico = Pico(keyword)
    mypico.connect()
    
    ''' The connected attribute tells if the connection was successful'''
    if mypico.connected:
        
        ''' You can interrupt a program (e.g. started by main.py at boot)
        or reset (reboot) the Pico'''
        mypico.reset()
        mypico.interrupt_prog()
        time.sleep(0.1)
        
        
        '''Commands can be sent and executed:'''
        #mypico.send_cmd("import time", verbose = False)
        #mypico.send_cmd("import time", verbose = True)
        mypico.set_rawREPL()
        mypico.send_cmd("3.14*5")
        print()
        print("Back to normal REPL")
        mypico.set_normalREPL()
        mypico.send_cmd("3.14*5")
        print()
        
        '''You can list the files on the Pico (except those in subfolders)'''
        print("Files on Pico:")
        files = mypico.list_files() 
        for f in files:
            print(f)
        
    
    '''Close the connection'''
    mypico.close()

Connector GUI

After trying to use the picoconnector module with a pure tkinter GUI, where everything was nicely decoupled, I came back to use something I had developed earlier: a textbox class directly connected to the serial interface. This made it much easier. The result is found in the gui folder. Feel free to improve it.