- About Plasma Stick
- Plasma Library
- Using Breakouts
- Basic Examples
- Advanced Examples
- Wireless Examples
- Other Resources
Plasma Stick 2040 W is a compact controller for WS2812 strip, powered by Raspberry Pi Pico W and perfect for easy, seasonal lighting. It has built in ✨wireless connectivity✨, courtesy of the onboard Pico W.
You can buy one on its own or in a kit:
Plasma Stick ships with MicroPython firmware pre-loaded, but you can download the most recent version at the link below (you'll want the pimoroni-picow image).
You can control your WS2812 / NeoPixel™ strip using our handy MicroPython Plasma library.
Note that the examples in this directory default to a RGB colour order to match the LEDs in the Wireless Plasma Kit. If you're using different LEDs you may need to adjust the colour order in your code - most of the other addressable LEDs we sell are GRB.
Plasma Stick has a Qw/ST (Qwiic/STEMMA QT) connector. Breakouts with Qw/ST connectors, can be plugged straight in with a JST-SH to JST-SH cable. You can connect I2C Breakout Garden breakouts without Qw/ST connectors using a JST-SH to JST-SH cable and a Qw/ST to Breakout Garden adaptor.
Plasma Stick uses GP4 and GP5 for its I2C interface. These are configured as defaults so you can just:
i2c = machine.I2C()Alternatively, you can specify the pins directly:
i2c = machine.I2C(sda=machine.Pin(4), scl=machine.Pin(5))These examples will also work on Plasma 2040 and Plasma 2350 (W).
Demonstrates animating two alternating colours, great for festive lights!
A 🔥 fire effect 🤘 (warning, flashy). Uses randomisation to animate the hue and brightness.
Spooky moon simulator - the LEDs will get brighter as midnight approaches! Needs to be run from Thonny to get the correct time.
Adjust the brightness or saturation of the LEDs using a sine wave.
Some good old fashioned rainbows!
Snow in a bottle!
A festive, customisable sparkly effect.
Reads the temperature from the Pico W's internal temperature sensor and changes the LED strip an appropriate colour.
A Christmas tree simulator.
These examples require additional hardware.
Reads CO2 level from a SCD41 CO2 breakout and turns the LED strip an appropriate colour.
Adjust the colour of your LEDs easily with an RGB Encoder breakout.
Spooky moon simulator - the LEDs will get brighter as midnight approaches! Gets the time from a RV3028 RTC breakout.
Connect a PIR motion sensor and trigger some ominous effects. We like these ones - we connected ours to the QwST connector using this cable and some socket to socket jumper jerky.
Reads the temperature from a BME280 breakout and changes the LED strip an appropriate colour.
These examples will also work on Plasma 2350 W or Plasma 2350 with an RM2 module.
The wireless examples need secrets.py from the examples directory to be saved to your Pico W. Open up secrets.py in Thonny to add your wifi details (and save it when you're done).
Sets your LED strip to the current #cheerlights colour. Find out more about the Cheerlights API at [https://cheerlights.com/].
This Plasma Stick example connects to Open Meteo to access the current weather conditions. It then does some cool weather appropriate stuff with LEDs. Find out more about the Open Meteo API at [https://open-meteo.com].
Here are some Plasma Stick community projects and resources that you might find useful! Note that code at the links below has not been tested by us and we're not able to offer support with it.
- 🔗 MQTT Script for Plasma Stick
- 🔗 Pimoroni Wireless Plasma Kit - Server
- 🔗 Plasma LEDs
- 🔗 Album Art Bottle LEDs
- 🔗 HomeAssistant Plasma - Micropython script to integrate Pimoroni Plasma Stick 2040W to Home Assistant via MQTT