Waveshare R7FA4 PLUS A and B boards are Arduino UNO R4 Minima and WiFi clones.

Arduino board clones have been around for years, but I don’t think I’ve seen any new Renesas-based Arduino board clones so far. Waveshare changes this with the R7FA4 PLUS A, which clones the Arduino UNO R4 Minima, and the R7FA4 PLUS B board, which clones the Arduino UNO R4 WiFi.

The Waveshare board is not a 100% clone, with some small changes to the PCB layout, support for 5V and 3.3V shields, an additional 6-pin “power output header” with 5V, 3.3V, and GND signals, and a USB communication jumper. There is a difference. Choose between Espressif ESP32-S3 and Renesas RA4M1 microcontroller.

Waveshare R7FA4 PLUS A and B specifications:

• Microcontroller – Renesas RA4M1 Arm Cortex-M4F MCU @ 48 MHz with 32KB SRAM, 256KB Flash
  
• wireless (B model only) – ESP32-S3 ESP32-S3-MINI-1 module based on dual-core Xtensa LX7 microcontroller with 512KB SRAM, 384KB ROM, WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, and PCB antenna
• screen (B model only) – 12×8 LED matrix (red)
• USB – 1 x USB Type-C port for power and programming
• expansion
  • Arduino UNO header with pins
    • 14x digital I/O
    • 13x LED pins
    • Analog – 6x analog input pins, 2x 12-bit analog DAC
    • 6x PWM
    • 1x UART, 1x I2C, 1x SPI
    • CAN bus support
    • I/O voltage – 5V and 3.3V (not available on Arduino boards, but works on Waveshare boards – TBC)
    • I/O current – ​​8mA
  • R7FA4 Plus B only
    • Qwiic I2C connector for expansion modules.
    • A 3-pin header with an “OFF” pin to power off the board and a “VRTC” pin to power the internal real-time clock to keep it running.
• Debugging and Programming – 6-pin ICSP header. R7FA4 Plus A only:10 pin SWD header
• Miscellaneous – Reset button, power LED, USB communication jumper
• power supply
  • Input voltage – 6-24V via power barrel jack or Vin, 5V via USB-C port
  • Output Header – 5.5V and 3.3V 6-pin header (not present on original Arduino UNO R4 board)
• Dimensions – 68.6 x 53.4mm

Both the Waveshare R7FA4 Plus A and B boards are functionally equivalent to the Arduino UNO R4 Minima and WiFi boards, except for additional support for a 3.3V Arduino shield (in addition to the 5V one) and an additional power output header. This means that the software for the official Arduino board will run on the “clone”, but Waveshare also provides detailed hardware documentation, PDF schematics, and instructions on how to get started using the Arduino IDE. We continue to provide wikis for each board, including guides.

The price of the Arduino UNO R4 “clone” is not that different from the original board with Waveshare R7FA4 Plus A. $21.59 including shipping on Aliexpress And Waveshare R7FA4 Plus B Sold for $27.89 shipped.Both boards are available $21.99 each on Amazon (Model A) and $29.99 (Model B).

Jean-Luc started CNX Software as a part-time job in 2010, then quit his job as a software engineering manager and began writing daily news and reviews full-time in late 2011.