Greetings,
I am developping a system that uses the NORA UBlox 106-10B and the arduino framework.
I am using the nano esp32 but on long term I will have my own developped electronics.
I am looking through the schematic time to time to understand the design choices. I get it this board has been developped to have the Arduino Nano compatibility pins. I still need to get clarification how the pin assignment betwen the Ublox module and the Arduino Nano pinout has been selected: — –
LED pinout for RGB LED: first I was wondering why, the RGB LED was tight to GPIO0/Boot, GPIO45 and GPIO46. rather than having an addressable LED. I found it very good to have this pin assignement, as it seems that this is directly interacting with the pins activity during boot/upload/bootloading mode… So yes I think it is worth keeping this layout in my electronic.
BUT:
**what about GPIO3 ? **
From what I have seen, Espressif suggest GPIO3 is used also for similar hardare boot/configuration/debug and monitoring. On the nano, The GPIO3 is connected to A2
Antenna disconnected
Is there any reason for this? If i was developping my own board, would you recommend leaving it disconnected?
B0/B1 pins:
I have had couple of issues with flashing the arduino esp32. The B0/B1 pins were very helpful. why not having implemented swithces that connect B0/B1 directly to GND? a tactile swith (momentary)and a dip swith (latching) would have been awsome for integrated electronics. Why Arduino designed the board to have them as “nano pinout”? My feeling is that vertical headers on the top of the board would have make more easier to reflash a board without removing it from the motherboard.
If I was doing my own design, would you recommend implementing this? (separate B0/B1 from any other electronic)
SPI bus pinout:
The esp32-s3 and Nora have already defined SPI bus. why selecting GPIO pins for the nora, rather than relying on the existing SPI bus? ChatGPT explained that to me: the approach of Ublox is to “Expose everything the chip can legally expose.” The Nora W106-10B has already an internal flash and psram connected to thes bus. You can use external peripherals using these pins, plus some of the pins could be used to repurpose the MCU. It makes sense to disconnect these pins on an arduino (and my future electronic)
I have no more question on it and the AI was able to confim some design choices.
I would be grateful if you could help me understanding some design choices so that I can refine my own architecture.
Thank you and have a great year 2026!**
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