There's a lot jam-packed into this shield! Lets take a look at what we've got going on.
Both WiFi and SD card use SPI to send and receive data. These pins are labeled CLK MISO MOSI and have level shifting so you can use this shield with 3.3V or 5V microcontroller boards.
By default the 2x3 pin ICSP header on the right hand side is where the SPI signals are found. However, on some older or custom Arduinos that have Atmega328P processors, the SPI pins are found on digital 11, 12, and 13
If you happen to want to use 11/12/13 rather than the SPI header, turn the board over, you can cut the 3 jumpers next to the 2-3 ISP header and solder the open jumpers between the SPI pins and D11/12/13
The WiFi module is where the magic happens. In addition to the SPI pins, the WINC module also requires three GPIO for control:
- CS chip select - can be any pin
- IRQ interrupt out - can be any pin despite being called an IRQ pin
- RST hardware reset - can be any pin
- EN - this is not a required pin, but can be used to completely disable power to the WINC for ultra-power-savings!
If you need to change the pins, cut the jumpers underneath the shield and rewire the pins.
There's a lot of space available on this shield so we also stuck on a micro SD card holder, great for datalogging or storing data to transmit over WiFi.
In addition to the shared SPI pins, the SDCS (chip select) pin is also used. It can be re-assigned to any pin by cutting the trace underneath the board and rewiring. If the SD card is not used, the SDCS pin can be used for any other purpose
There are 3 LEDs that are controlled by the Arduino library - they will let you know when there is WiFi access-point connectivity, Activity or an Error when setting up.
Page last edited March 08, 2024
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