I have a need for a Arduino Nano rp2040 pico without the connect features. I need speed. Are there other interest out there for this device?
why not just use the Pico?
Sorry, can't understand 'without the connect features'.
Many vendors sell an rp2040 development board without any wireless connectivity.
There is RPI itself, and their approved vendors, selling the RPi "Pico." cheap!
Adafruit got tired of Microchip chip shortages and designed [a bunch of rp2040 boards]
(Search Results for 'rp2040' on Adafruit Industries) with various formfactors and bells and whistles.
So did Sparkfun
I'm a bit partial to Cytron's boards, that add literal bells, and lights, and connectors and stuff.
Raspberry Pi has a whole sub-forum dedicated to "other rp2040 boards."
Thanks for your question. I should have described my application better. I selected the Arduino Nano Family because of the large number of digital and analog pins and the small footprint. I have been developing with the Nano Every. I have already cut pc boards and I need to move up the Nano Family with the same pinout. Arduino now has 6 boards in the Nano Family the last being the Nano rp2040 connect, What I would like to see is another member based on the rp2040 with Nano footprint and pinout i.e a Nano rp2040 pico to complement the rp2040 connect and give users a low cost way to evaluate the new rp2040 architecture. I need the speed and not interested at this point in the connect features but would be possible in the future.
Raspberry Pi has a board designed around their new rp2040 chip called the rp2040 pico. It just brings out the chip functionality in a different footprint and pinout than the Arduino Nano product family. The Nano rp2040 uses that same MCU chip and adds additional "connection" chips for added functionality(and added cost). I am committed to the Nano footprint and pinout because I already have pc boards fabbed. So if Arduino introduced a Nano rp2040 "pico" with Nano footprint and pinout it would extend the Nano family with a low cost entry point to introduce new users to the rp2040 family of MCUs.
Yes, you are correct the, the rp2040 MCU is being adopted across the industry. I have bought into the Arduino IDE and product line and selected the Nano family for my project. I have been using the Nano Every but need the speed of the rp2040. I have already cut pc boards and need an Arduino Nano rp2040 (pico) with Nano footprint and pinout and yes at lower cost than the Nano rp2040 connect. This would also help Arduino introduce the rp2040 MCU family at a low cost for evaluation and keep the Nano rp2040 connect in place for future upgrades.
Maybe https://www.robotshop.com/products/maker-nano-rp2040 ?
(OEM: Maker Nano RP2040: Simplifying Projects with Raspberry Pi RP2040 )
Says "provides the same Arduino Nano form factor"
But also:
** The IO voltage is only 3.3V and it's not 5V compatible.*
** There are only four ADC inputs (A0 - A3) on the Maker Nano RP2040 instead of eight on the Arduino Nano.*
"** The IO voltage is only 3.3V and it's not 5V compatible.*"
Yes but that is an easy fix on my design because all the other parts on the board are 3.3-5v logic supply compatible. The 5V was supplied by the Nano Every. The rp2040 can provide the 3.3V to the same 5V node then all parts are 3.3V.
"** There are only four ADC inputs (A0 - A3) on the Maker Nano RP2040 instead of eight on the Arduino Nano.*"
That was a choice made by Maker Nano rp2040 designers. The rp2040 has A0-A7 and all are brought out by the Arduino Nano rp2040 connect. A Nano rp2040 "pico" would have all (A0-A7) brought out and pin compatible with Nano Every.
I really do appreciate you pointing out these possible issues and challenging me to look at all the issues. Thanks.
on Nano Connect, A6 A4 to A7 are on the ADC of the Nina esp32 module and mediated to the main MCU (RP2040) over SPI with the WiFiNINA library
rp2040 only has 4 ADC inputs. Boards compatible with the Pico may use one of these to monitor Vin.
Thank you for keeping me digging into the docs to explain why the Arduino rp2040 connect shows a pinout of A0-A7 while the rp2040 MCU only has A0-A3. Reading the details in the Arduino rp2040 connect explains how they got compatibility with the Arduino Nano definition of A0-A7. Here is the quote in the data sheet.
"The analog pins A4 to A7 are connected to the 12 bit ADC of the Nina W102 module. Whereas analog pins A0 to A3 are connected to the 12 bit ADC of RP2040. Since the original nano board has 8 analog pins, to make the RP2040 connect board similar to it, the analog pins of the RP2040 are expanded to 8 using the Nina W102 module."
They use the ESP32 to get the additional analog inputs so I guess if I want to use the rp2040 MCU I have to use the Arduino rp2040 connect and pay the $25 cost and cannot expect a RP "pico" low cost like product with A0-A7 capability.
Thanks again, it is more clear to me now how I get to the rp2040 MCU core performance with my current pc layout.
From the Nano rp2040 connect datasheet:
"The analog pins A4 to A7 are connected to the 12 bit ADC of the Nina W102 module. Whereas analog pins A0 to A3 are connected to the 12 bit ADC of RP2040. Since the original nano board has 8 analog pins, to make the RP2040 connect board similar to it, the analog pins of the RP2040 are expanded to 8 using the Nina W102 module."
yes it is what I paraphrased in my comment.
Ok, thanks. I am getting a better understanding about using this device.
Understand that RP2040NANO is a watered down version in terms of its hardware/software capabilities when it comes to SPI/I2C. Also the size difference is not that much I have a regular Pico, Pico W, as well as Pimoroni's implementation of Picos (which is one of the best in my opinion with a JST battery connector built in, along with a stemma plug for easy I2c usage (hardware I2c) and also has a connector for the debug pins and up to 16MB of flash storage no WIFI which is a bummer, of course you can add a WIFI module if you want and program it yourself. . If is a size thing the NANO is maybe 1/2" (3 to 4 "squares" on a bread board) shorter than a true Pico and about two "squares" on a breadboard smaller. I'm literally comparing both of them side by side right now.
If you dont want WIFI you are better off getting one from Adafruit, Pimoroni, Sparkfun a ton of companies make them since RPI allowed several vendors to produce their own variants of the device they are still 100% compliant with the Pico SDK, If they are Pico variants you can get them as small as a postage stamp. The rp2040(pico) always has the same specs:
- Dual ARM Cortex-M0+ @ 133MHz (2 cores so you can run 2 threads concurrently I've used this feature many times)
- 264kB on-chip SRAM in six independent banks
Sounds like in your case you are stuck with the rp2040 NANO due to having boards already cut. But in the future you should look into pico (no wireless) or picow (wireless) if you want the full feature set and as other stated many vendors make their clones with more bells and goodies that the offical RPI pico.
I just checked out westfw's comment as I never heared of Cytron boards. Those look really nice too I need to pic one of those up!
I have a book dedicated to Pico and programming in C and you should be aware that the ADC is actually only 9 bits of accuracy not 12.
I've proved this to be true just be adding a ferrite_beads to the power and ground lines right next to the device providing analog signals. Its not a huge improvement but it is a noticeable improvement so there is truth the the "noise" claim.
The book states ("most of the loss in precision is due to the way the reference voltage is supplied and to noise due to its integration with other digital devices. According to the documentation you can improve the accuracy by modifying the reference voltage")
it goes on to explain how this can be enhanced i'll spare you the paragraph.
I don't know if the NANO has this issue or not, likely it does..
Book is Programming the Raspberry Pi Pico/W in C 2nd edition by Harry Fairhead from iopress.
Of course you could add your own ADC with higher precision using SPI. The well known MCP3008 will give you 8 channels of 10 bit accuracy. Other MCP modules 3201 3208 and others can give you 12 bits of accuracy.
So it boils down to if you need WiFi or not if not you you have many more options out there in different sizes and pin capabilities. The only reason I own a rp2040NANO is because it is the only 2040 based board that has WiFi besides the standard PicoW that only has 2MB of on board Flash. I've bought additional storage to try and add that but I haven't gotten around to it. The NANO has wifi and 16mb of flash storage so I figured I would try one out. If I can get it working with the IoT cloud in micropython I may buy others right now its been a train wreck to trying to get it to work. I've had to edit Arduino provided python modules just to even get to a point it tries to connect to the cloud. Arudino claims the 2040NANA has full support for MP. Well...they need to fix their documentation for IoT connection for a 2040NANO as is wildly wrong and I seriously doubt they tested this thoroughly for the 2040NANO. It connects fine to the cloud if you use Arduino's odd C/C++ implementation in their IDE. I don't program in this as its not a standardized language used elsewhere. This is why I have chosen pure C and Micropython. These are real official languages accepted as standardized languages. Arduino sketches are just that. Tied to Arduino. So I have never been a fan or used it.
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