This Feather has a lot going on! This page details all of the pin-specific information and various capabilities.
PrettyPins PDF on GitHub.
- USB C connector - This is used for power and data. Connect to your computer via a USB C cable to update firmware and edit code.
- LiPoly Battery connector - This 2-pin JST PH connector allows you to plug in LiPoly batteries to power the Feather. The Feather is also capable of charging batteries plugged into this port via USB.
- chg LED - This small LED is located below the USB C connector. This indicates the charge status of a connected LiPoly battery, if one is present and USB is connected. It is amber while charging, and green when fully charged. Note, it's normal for this LED to flicker when no battery is in place, that's the charge circuitry trying to detect whether a battery is there or not.
- GND - These are the common ground for all power and logic.
- BAT - This is the positive voltage to/from the 2-pin JST PH jack for the optional LiPoly battery.
- USB - This is the positive voltage to/from the USB C connector, if USB is connected.
- EN - This is the 3.3V regulator's enable pin. It's pulled up, so connect to ground to disable the 3.3V regulator.
- 3.3V - These pins are the output from the 3.3V regulator, they can supply 500mA peak.
I2C and SPI on RP2040
The RP2040 is capable of handling I2C, SPI and UART on many pins. However, there are really only two peripherals each of I2C, SPI and UART: I2C0 and I2C1, SPI0 and SPI1, and UART0 and UART1. So while many pins are capable of I2C, SPI and UART, you can only do two at a time, and only on separate peripherals, 0 and 1. I2C, SPI and UART peripherals are included and numbered below.
PWM on RP2040
The RP2040 supports PWM on all pins. However, it is not capable of PWM on all pins at the same time. There are 8 PWM "slices", each with two outputs, A and B. Each pin on the Feather is assigned a PWM slice and output. For example, A0 is PWM5 A, which means it is first output of the fifth slice. You can have up to 16 PWM objects on this Feather. The important thing to know is that you cannot use the same slice and output more than once at the same time. So, if you have a PWM object on pin A0, you cannot also put a PWM object on D10, because they are both PWM5 A. The PWM slices and outputs are indicated below. Note that PWM2 A and PWM3 B are not available on the this Feather because not all pins are broken out.
Analog Pins
The RP2040 has four ADCs. These pins are the only pins capable of handling analog, and they can also do digital.
- A0/GP26 - This pin is ADC0. It is also SPI1 SCK, I2C1 SDA and PWM5 A.
- A1/GP27 - This pin is ADC1. It is also SPI1 MOSI, I2C1 SCL and PWM5 B.
- A2/GP28 - This pin is ADC2. It is also SPI1 MISO, I2C1 SDA and PWM6 A.
- A3/GP29 - This pin is ADC3. It is also SPI1 CS, I2C0 SCL and PWM6 B.
Digital Pins
These are the digital I/O pins. They all have multiple capabilities.
- D24/GPIO24 - Digital I/O pin 24. It is also UART1 TX, I2C0 SDA, and PWM4 A.
- D25/GPIO25 - Digital I/O pin 25. It is also UART1 RX, I2C0 SCL, and PWM4 B.
- SCK/GPIO14 - The main SPI1 SCK. It is also I2C1 SDA, and PWM7 A.
- MO/GPIO15 - The main SPI1 MOSI. It is also I2C1 SCL, and PWM7 B.
- MI/GPIO8 - The main SPI1 MISO. It is also UART1 TX, I2C0 SDA, and PWM4 A.
- RX/GPIO1 - The main UART0 RX pin. It is also I2C0 SDA, SPI0 CS and PWM0 B.
- TX/GPIO0 - The main UART0 TX pin. It is also I2C0 SCL, SPI0 MISO and PWM0 A.
- D13/GPIO13 - Digital I/O pin 13. It is also SPI1 CS, UART0 RX, I2C0 SCL and PWM6 B.
- D12/GPIO12 - Digital I/O pin 12. It is also SPI1 MISO, UART0 TX, I2C0 SDA and PWM6 A.
- D11/GPIO11 - Digital I/O pin 11. It is also SPI1 MOSI, I2C1 SCL and PWM5 B.
- D10/GPIO10 - Digital I/O pin 10. It is also SPI1 SCK, I2C1 SDA and PWM5 A.
- D9/GPIO9 - Digital I/O pin 9. It is also SPI1 CS, UART1 RX, I2C0 SCL and PWM4 B.
- D6/GPIO6 - Digital I/O pin 6. It is also SPI0 SCK, I2C1 SDA, and PWM3 A.
- D5/GPIO5 - Digital I/O pin 5. It is also SPI0 CS, UART1 RX, I2C0 SCL, and PWM2 B.
- SCL/GP03 - The main I2C1 clock pin. It is also SPI0 MOSI, I2C1 SCL and PWM1 B.
- SDA/GP02 - The main I2C1 data pin. It is also SPI0 SCK, I2C1 SDA and PWM1 A.
CircuitPython I2C, SPI and UART
Note that in CircuitPython, there is a board object each for STEMMA QT, I2C, SPI and UART that use the connector and pins labeled on the Feather. You can use these objects to initialise these peripherals in your code.
-
board.STEMMA_I2C()
uses the STEMMA QT connector (in this case, SCL/SDA pins) -
board.I2C()
uses SCL/SDA pins -
board.SPI()
uses SCK/MO/MI pins -
board.UART()
uses RX/TX pins
GPIO Pins by Pin Functionality
Primary pins based on the silkscreen pin labels are bold.
I2C Pins
- I2C0 SCL: A3, D25, RX, D13, D9, D5
- I2C0 SDA: A2, D24, MISO, TX, D12
- I2C1 SCL: SCL, A1, MOSI, D11
- I2C1 SDA: SDA, A0, SCK, D10, D6
SPI Pins
- SPI0 SCK: D6, SDA
- SPI0 MOSI: SCL
- SPI0 MISO: TX
- SPI0 CS: RX, D5
- SPI1 SCK: SCK, A0, D10
- SPI1 MOSI: MOSI, A1, D11
- SPI1 MISO: MISO, A2, D24, D12
- SPI1 CS: A3, D25, D13, D9
UART Pins
- UART0 TX: TX, A2, D12
- UART0 RX: RX, A3, D13
- UART1 TX: D24, MISO
- UART1 RX: D25, D9, D5
PWM Pins
- PWM0 A: TX
- PWM0 B: RX
- PWM1 A: SDA
- PWM1 B: SCL
- PWM2 A: (none)
- PWM2 B: D5
- PWM3 A: D6
- PWM3 B: (none)
- PWM4 A: D24, MISO
- PWM4 B: D25, D9
- PWM5 A: A0, D10
- PWM5 B: A1, D11
- PWM6 A: A2, D12
- PWM6 B: A3, D13
- PWM7 A: SCK
- PWM7 B: MOSI
This Feather has an RFM69HCW high power 868/915 MHz radio module built right in. This radio is not good for transmitting audio or video, but it does work quite well for small data packet transmission when you need more range than 2.4 GHz (BT, BLE, WiFi, ZigBee). It is an SX1231 based module with SPI interface.
The radio module has a chip select and reset pin.
- The RFM chip select pin is available as
RFM_CS
in CircuitPython, andPIN_RFM_CS
in Arduino. - The RFM reset pin is available as
RFM_RST
in CircuitPython, andPIN_RFM_RST
in Arduino.
There are also six IO pins.
- Pin 0 is available as
RFM_IO0
in CircuitPython, andPIN_RFM_DIO0
in Arduino. - Pin 1 is available as
RFM_IO1
in CircuitPython, andPIN_RFM_DIO1
in Arduino. - Pin 2 is available as
RFM_IO2
in CircuitPython, andPIN_RFM_DIO2
in Arduino. - Pin 3 is available as
RFM_IO3
in CircuitPython, andPIN_RFM_DIO3
in Arduino. - Pin 4 is available as
RFM_IO4
in CircuitPython, andPIN_RFM_DIO4
in Arduino. - Pin 5 is available as
RFM_IO5
in CircuitPython, andPIN_RFM_DIO5
in Arduino.
On the right side oft the board, above center, is a uFL connector that can be used with uFL-to-SMA adapters for attaching bigger antennas.
Immediately above the connector is the ANT through-hole pad, which makes it possible to add a simple wire antenna by soldering it in.
The large square towards the middle is the RP2040 microcontroller, the "brains" of this Feather board.
The square towards the top-middle is the QSPI Flash. It is connected to 6 pins that are not brought out on the GPIO pads. This way you don't have to worry about the SPI flash colliding with other devices on the main SPI connection.
QSPI is neat because it allows you to have 4 data in/out lines instead of just SPI's single line in and single line out. This means that QSPI is at least 4 times faster. But in reality is at least 10x faster because you can clock the QSPI peripheral much faster than a plain SPI peripheral.
The Boot button is the button on the right. It is available as board.BOOT
in CircuitPython, and is available for use in Arduino as PIN_BUTTON
. It is also used to enter the bootloader. To enter the bootloader, press and hold Boot and then power up the board (either by plugging it into USB or pressing Reset). The bootloader is used to install/update CircuitPython.
The Reset button is on the left. It restarts the board and helps enter the bootloader. You can click it to reset the board without unplugging the USB cable or battery.
The RST pin can be used to reset the board. Tie to ground manually to reset the board.
Above the pin labels for D24 and D25 is the status NeoPixel LED. In CircuitPython, the NeoPixel is available at board.NEOPIXEL
and the library for it is available in the bundle. In Arduino, it is accessible at PIN_NEOPIXEL
. The NeoPixel is powered by the 3.3V power supply but that hasn't shown to make a big difference in brightness or color. In CircuitPython, the LED is used to indicate the runtime status.
Above the USB C connector is the D13 LED. This little red LED is controllable in CircuitPython code using board.LED
, and in Arduino as PIN_LED
. Also, this LED will pulse when the board is in bootloader mode.
On the far right of the board, below the antenna connector, is the STEMMA QT connector! This means you can connect up all sorts of I2C sensors and breakouts, no soldering required! This connector uses the SCL and SDA pins for I2C, which end up being the RP2040's I2C1 peripheral. In CircuitPython, you can initialise the STEMMA connector with board.STEMMA_I2C()
(as well as with board.SCL
/board.SDA
). In Arduino it is Wire
.
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