Konubinix' opinionated web of thoughts

Board With a Single Microcontroller

Fleeting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_single-board_microcontrollers

Boards that contain a microcontroller. Sometime people with call them microprocessor development board1, but that is only a matter of perspective.

tl;dr

Board MCU / Core Max Clock RAM Flash Wireless Bluetooth GPIO (exposed) ADC / DAC USB Power Input microSD Accelerometer RTC WS2812 Notes
Pyboard v1.1 STM32F405RG (Cortex-M4F) 168 MHz 192 KB 1 MB — — ~29 (24 edge + 5 bottom) 3× ADC (12-bit, 16 pins) / 2× DAC micro-USB 3.6–16V (LDO) Yes Yes Yes — DFU bootloader
Raspberry Pi Pico W RP2040 (dual-core M0+) 133 MHz 264 KB 2 MB 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n 5.2 26 (through-hole pads) 3× ADC (plus temp sensor) / — micro-USB 1.8–5.5V (VSYS) No No No — PIO, USB 1.1 host/device
WeMos D1 (R2) ESP8266EX (single-core) 80/160 MHz — 4 MB 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n — 11 digital + 1 analog 1× ADC (A0) / — micro-USB 9–12V (barrel jack) No No No — Arduino UNO footprint
Waveshare ESP32-C3 ESP32-C3FH4 (RISC-V) 160 MHz 400 KB 4 MB 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n 5 LE 15 2× ADC / — USB-C 5V (USB) No No No Yes Castellated module, onboard ant

— chatgpt ([2025-08-19 Tue])

where to find some interesting ones

https://www.seeedstudio.com/

https://unexpectedmaker.com/shop.html

https://www.wemos.cc/en/latest/

https://lilygo.cc/

adafruit

https://thingpulse.com/

ESP8266 based board

nodemcu board architecture

It is an architecture of boards that run with an ESP-122. Not to be confused with the nodemcu/nodemcu-firmware: Lua based interactive firmware for ESP8266, ESP8285 and ESP323.

by m5stack

AtomS3 Lite ESP32S3 Dev Kit

by lilygo

T7 Mini32 V1.5

D32

by lolin/wemos

wemos/lolin d1

LDO is an ME6211 (https://stm32-base.org/assets/pdf/regulators/ME6211.pdf) which has an absolute maximum input voltage of 6v5 and whose datasheet (pp. 12-14) indicates smooth and continuous regulation from an input voltage range of ~4-6v.

— https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/545650/power-d1-mini-with-4-aa-batteries

mini

Property Value
Operating Voltage 3.3V
Digital I/O Pins 11
Analog Input Pins 1 (3.2V Max)
Clock Speed 80/160MHz
Flash 4M Bytes
Size 34.2 * 25.6 mm
Weight 3g

— https://www.wemos.cc/en/latest/d1/d1_mini.html

pinout

— https://lastminuteengineers.com/wemos-d1-mini-pinout-reference/

S3 MINI

C3 mini

S2 mini

by adafruit

Adafruit Feather HUZZAH with ESP8266

an ‘all-in-one’ ESP8266 WiFi development board with built-in USB and battery charging

— https://www.adafruit.com/product/2821

You don’t need a battery, it will run just fine straight from the micro USB connector. But, if you do have a battery, you can take it on the go, then plug in the USB to recharge. The Feather will automatically switch over to USB power when it’s available

— https://www.adafruit.com/product/2821

Adafruit Feather HUZZAH with RP2040

trinket M0

— https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-trinket-m0-circuitpython-arduino/pinouts ([2025-08-25 Mon])

circuit playground express

by arduino

Micro

Zero

UNO R3

rasberry pi pico

pico w

— https://devboards.info/boards/raspberry-pi-pico-w ([2025-09-11 Thu])

pyboard

pyboard v1.1

Running a stm32

Notes linking here

  1. Although these development boards were not designed for hobbyists, they were often bought by them because they were the earliest cheap microcomputer devices available

    — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessor_development_board

    reason for the existence of a development board was solely to provide a system for learning to use a new microprocessor, not for entertainment, so everything superfluous was left out to keep costs down. Even an enclosure was not supplied, nor a power supply. This is because the board would only be used in a “laboratory” environment so it did not need an enclosure, and the board could be powered by a typical bench power supply already available to an electronic engineer.

    — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessor_development_board

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  2. NodeMCU has an ESP12, which itself is a module containing the ESP8266

    — https://blog.spacehuhn.com/nodemcu-vs-esp8266

     ↩︎

  3. team which developed NodeMCU Firmware also developed a breakout board for ESP-12E module called the NodeMCU Devkit. So, many of us are actually using the board called NodeMCU and programming it with Arduino IDE and not the Lua Scripts

    — https://www.electronicshub.org/getting-started-with-nodemcu/

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