Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 Pinout & features

The Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 is the first board of the MKR family which supports LoRa connectivity. It is a miniature module which is cost-effective and powerful. 

The Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 functionally combines the features of Arduino Zero and LoRa connectivity. With time this board has become a great choice for makers who are designing projects based on IoT connectivity but having minimal knowledge of networking. One of the best qualities of this board which makes it different from other boards is that it can be mounted as Dual In-Line Package or DIP throughout the already mounted headers. 

The Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 is capable of performing very long-range transmission operations while consuming less power. 

In this article, we will be discussing about one of the best boards of the Arduino MKR family but before this, if you have not checked about Arduino Zero we suggest you to check it out first.

Let’s dig in:-

Board Layout:-

Microprocessor:- 

Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 is a microcontroller board which is based on Arm Cortex-M0 32-bit SAMD21 processor Microcontroller. This board contains a low-power but powerful processor. 

Cryptochip:- 

The Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 has a Cryptochip which is ATECC508A. The ATECC508A is the first crypto chip which has integrated ECDH or Elliptic Curve Diffie–Hellman key agreement. It is used for the encryption and decryption of digital signals. It is also used to encrypt and decrypt the IoT nodes which are used in building a sensor network for agricultural projects and other applications.

This crypto chip can protect storage up to 16 keys, Data or Certificates.

Murata CMWX1ZZABZ LORA Module:-

The Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 uses a LoRa connectivity for transmitting data to nearby gateways which are connected to the Text To Speech or TTS service which sends the data to the Arduino IoT cloud.

This module has 192 Kb of flash memory as well as +20dBm radio frequency transmitter output power.

We can also use the LoRa protocol to implement our own network and then connect it to LoRaWAN networks such as The Things Network.

The Things Network is a global collaborative Internet of Things or IoT ecosystem that creates networks, devices, and solutions using LoRaWAN.

USB Connector:-

Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 consists of a Micro USB B port for supplying operating voltage to the board.

Clock Speed:-

The Clock frequency of the Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 processor is 48 MHz while the clock frequency of the Real Time Clock or RTC is 32.768 kHz.

Memory:-

The microprocessor of Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 has a total of 256 KB of Flash memory and 32KB SRAM while the LoRa module has a total of 192 KB of Flash memory and 20 KB of RAM memory. 

Specifications Of Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310:-

The Specifications are as follows:-

Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 Pinout Description:-

Power Pins:-  

1. Vin:- 

This pin is used for supplying an input voltage of 5 volts. The input voltage is a direct current supply voltage. This input voltage is used to regulate the integrated circuits(ICs) which are used in the connections. When this pin is in use the USB pin is disconnected. Vin is also known as the primary voltage source  on the Arduino MKR
WAN 1300/1310 board.

2. 5v pin:- 

The 5v pin is used as the output for external components. The output is 5v. This pin is used only when the board is powered by USB or the power source of the 5v pin is a USB connector.

3. 3V3 Pin:- 

The 3V3 pin is used as an output pin. This pin generates the output voltage of 3.3 volts.

4. Reset Pin:- 

The RESET pin is used to reset the board. For this purpose we have to pull down this pin to LOW.

5. GND pin:- 

This pin is used as the ground pin of the board. 

Digital Pins:- 

1. Digital I/O Pins:- 

There are a total of 22 digital input/output pins available on the Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310. The digital pins are used as an input or output according to the requirement. The digital pins are only able to read two values which are :-

1. High
2. Low 

However, we can use 1 for the high state and 0 for the low state. When these pins receive 0V they are in a LOW state and when they receive 5V they are in a HIGH state.

The digital pins on the Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 are from D0 to D21

Analog Pins:-  

There are a total of 7 analog pins available on the Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 board. Analog Input Pins are used to take the signal from analog sensors and then convert it into a digital value. These pins can receive any value, unlike digital pins. It can receive value not only in high or low states but in other forms also. The analog pins of the board are from Pin A0 to Pin A06. 

Analog pins of Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 Board are as follows:-

PWM Pins:-  

There are 13 pins also known as Pulse Width Modulation pins. The work of these PWM pins is to convert the digital inputs to analog output. These pins provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite () function. The PWM pins of the Arduino WAN 1300/1310 board are 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,12, A3 and A4.

Communication Pins of Arduino MKR GSM 1300/1310:-

1. I2C Pins:- 

The Arduino MKR Wan 1300/1310 board contains the I2C communication protocol. It stands for “Inter-Integrated Circuit.” It is a two-wire serial communication protocol. It uses two pins for communication purposes. One of them is used to send data while the other pin is used to receive data. 

The two pins of the I2C protocol are “Serial Clock Pin(SCL)” and “Serial Data Pin(SDA)”.

• SCL – It is defined as the line or pin which transfers the clock data. SCL pin is used to synchronize the shift of data in between two devices. This signal is generated by the master device.

It is a clock line.

• SDA – It is defined as the line or pin which is used by slave devices to send and receive data. It is a data line.

I2C pins on the board are D11 which is SDA and D12 which is SCL.

2. SPI Pins:-

The Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 board supports the “Serial – Peripheral Communication Protocol” or SPI. The SPI protocol is used to develop communication between the controller device and its peripheral devices. Three pins are needed for SPI communication protocol which are:- 

• MISO – It stands for Master Input/Slave Output. This data line sends data to the master device. 
• MOSI – It stands for Master Output/Slave Input. This data line is used for sending data to slaves/peripheral devices.
• SCK – This pin is used to synchronize the data transfer between the master and slave device.

SPI pins on the board are D08 which is used as the MOSI pin, D09 which is used as the SCK pin and D10 which is used as the MISO pin.

The Pins MISO and MOSI are also known as CIPO and COPI which stand for “Controller In Peripheral Out” and “Controller Out Peripheral In” respectively.

3. UART Pin:-

The Arduino MKR WAN 1300/1310 consists of a UART communication protocol which is used for serial communication of data. It needs two pins for communication purposes which are Rx and TX.

• Rx – This pin is used to transmit the serial data.
• TX – This pin is used to receive the serial data.

UART pins on the board are D13 which acts as RX pin and D14 which act as TX pin.

AREF:- 

The AREF pin is used to provide the external reference voltage to the analog pins for the analog-to-digital conversion process.

LED BUILT-IN:-

This LED blinks whenever the board is powered up or power is supplied to the board.