RP2 Nano is a $6.6 Raspberry Pi RP2040 board with Arduino Nano form factor

ArtronShop RP2 Nano board features the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller in the Arduino Nano form factor in a way that’s much cheaper than the official Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect board.

That’s possible because Thailand-based AtronShop did not include all the bells and whistles such as WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, sensors, and used a smaller flash. So the RP2 Nano basically offers the same I/Os and features as the Arduino Nano, but the Microchip ATmega328 8-bit AVR microcontroller gives place to the more powerful Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ MCU plus 2MB flash, and the board also adds an extra Grove connector for expansion.

RP2 Nano specifications:

• MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex M0+ microcontroller @ 133 MHz with 264 kB of embedded SRAM
• Storage – 2MB SPI flash
• USB – 1x USB Type-C OTG port for power, data, and programming
• Expansion
  • Arduino Nano headers (2x 15-pin headers)
    • Up to 22x GPIOS configurable as PWM pins
    • 4x analog input pins up to 3.3V
    • 2x UART,  1x I2C, 1x SPI
    • Audio – I2S support via Raspberry Pi PIO
    • Vin, 5V, 3.3V, GND
  • 4-pin I2C Grove connector
• Misc – Built-in LED, Boot & Reset buttons
• Power Supply
  • Input – 5V via USB-C, or 5-12V via VIN
  • Operating voltage – 3.3V
  • Output current up to 500mA
• Dimensions – About 45 x 18 mm (Arduino Nano 3.0 form factor)

The company says the RP2 Nano can be programmed with Arduino IDE, the microBlock IDE (popular in Thailand) for visual programming, and MicroPython. It’s basically a Raspberry Pi Pico in a different form factor, so anything that works on the Pico should work on the RP2 Nano with potentially some minor tweaks required.

The comparison table above between the Arduino Nano and the RP2 Nano is mostly correct, except I count more than 16 GPIOs and there’s only one SPI port accessible to the user with the second one used for the SPI flash. The RP2 Nano looks to be better in every way, except for the lower number of analog inputs.

ArtronShop sells the RP2 Nano board on their shop for 230 Baht or around $6.60 which also has some decent documentation, but everything is only in Thai. I had assumed they would ship the board outside of Thailand when I started this post, but their website is not available in English, and it looks like you’d need to be in Thailand or know somebody who lives in Thailand in order to purchase the board. I am surprised not to find any equivalent “Raspberry Pi RP2040 Arduino Nano” on Aliexpress, and the closest board I can find is the $10 Cytron Maker Nano RP2040 with the Raspberry Pi MCU, an Arduino Nano form factor (albeit slightly longer), and a few extra features like a buzzer and RGB LEDs.

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