Difference between F446RE & F446ZE Nucleo

[HMSEdinburge]

Hello... can anyone advise on the difference between F446RE and F446ZE? i just found out the USART to USB VCP was shifted to USART3 instead of USART2 in the new ZE. Can anyone advise on any other difference? 

[Andrew Neil]

You could look at the two User Manuals:

F446RE: UM1724, STM32 Nucleo-64 boards (MB1136)
via: https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/nucleo-f446re.html#documentation

F446ZE: UM1974, STM32 Nucleo-144 boards (MB1137)
via: https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/nucleo-f446ze.html#documentation

Also the schematics - see the 'CAD Resources' tabs on those Product Pages.

[Tesla DeLorean]

Well apart from them being entirely different boards, with different pin counts, and escape to different headers, etc

Same IC / DIE, so 180 MHz, 512 KB Flash, 128 KB RAM

QSPI Escaped

[Andrew Neil]

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@Tesla DeLorean wrote:

 entirely different boards, with different pin counts

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Indeed:

[Tesla DeLorean]

It's my view that you'd need to do a complete reappraisal of the pin usage, and look at all the stubs and escape paths to the different header arrangement.

It doesn't implement the Ethernet of the other NUCLEO-144's for parts that do, and I'd expect the Arduino shield connections to be going to different pins also.

One of the big issues with the NUCLEO-64 designs is that the Arduino shield D0/D1 clashed/share a UART resource with the VCP, and this gets avoided with more pins and UART escaped.

The double wide Arduino connector is a challenge, not seen a breakout / protoboard

You need different X-NUCLEO-GFX shields for NUCLEO-64 vs 144

https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/x-nucleo-gfx01m1.html

https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/x-nucleo-gfx01m2.html

https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/x-nucleo-gfx02z1.html

[Tesla DeLorean]

>>I just found out the USART to USB VCP was shifted to USART3 instead of USART2

This is somewhat of a blessing, as now the F4 has a different UART for the Arduino D0/D1 pins from that of the VCP, so you can now use BOTH

[Andrew Neil]

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@Tesla DeLorean wrote:

The double wide Arduino connector is a challenge, not seen a breakout / protoboard

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But there's the "Morpho" headers - which are on a standard, sensible, regular 0.1" pitch.

Have to fit them yourself, though.