Beginners guide to Arduino nano

The Arduino nano is a circuit board which contains SMD components and a microchip usually ATmega 168 or ATmega 328P. It is a modified version of the Arduino Uno, thus it has greatly replaced the Uno.  It pins are extended for it to fit into bread boards. It small size and much numbers of input/output pins  gave it much great applications in embedded systems and mini projects. It's a great choice for beginners who ain't good, experienced or expert at embedded systems but wanna get their hands dirty with complex and marvelous projects you'd proud to showcase in your school or get the attention of people. It has potentials like creating an automatic pick and place robot, Google Glass, metal from waste seperator or even an MP3 player.

A brief tour on the Arduino nano.

Just like the Arduino Uno, the Arduino nano consists of input/output digital and analog pins, SPI, USB connector and so on.

Power supply pinouts.

The Arduino nano lacks a power jack and it can only be powered by USB cables or directly.

•USB cable.

The USB port on the Arduino nano is connected by a USB cable to a 5v power supply voltage usually from a computer. When connected to a computer either when uploading a program or intentionally powering it with  by connecting to it, it can only supply a volatage of 5v and a maximum current of 500mA or 1A depending on the type of laptop you use.

•Vin.

This pin is use to power the board externally by connecting the negative terminal of the DC source to the ground of the board and the positive terminal to the vin pin. Voltage within 5v to 12 must be use to power the Arduino nano or else you will get the onboard voltage burnt and also have the whole board destroyed.

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•GND.

This pins are all connected to one another, they're use to power the board by connecting a negative voltage or it's use to output negative voltage to power peripherals attached to the nano.

•5v pin. 

This pin is use for supplying a regulated voltage of 5v to connected components. 

•3.3v pin.

This is amount of voltage produced from the board by a voltage regulator which is use to power components attached to the board.

 Input/output Analog pinout. 

The Arduino nano consists of eight analog pins which can be used as both output or input pins. It consists of analog pins labelled A0,A1,A2,A3,A4,A5,A6,A7. 

You can easily find this pins on the Arduino nano, they can be use to input analog signals or output Analog signals. Also digital signals can be input to this pins. The analog pins are connected to a analog to digital converter (ADC) which converts analog signals from electronic components to digital signals the ATmega chip can work on or manipulate based on sets of codes. 

Input/output Digital pinout.

The Arduino nano has only 14 digital pins which can be use as input or output. The pins are labelled as 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13. Pin 3,5,6,9,11 are for pulse width modulation. The digital pins can only output signals in form of 0(High)  and 1(Low). To input a analog signal to the digital pins an analog to digital converter is needed to be connected between the Arduino pins and the analog input, for the signal to be converted to analog. 

AREF pin.

It stands for analog reference. The pin is use to reference voltage to the input voltage. Reset btn. The button is use reset the Arduino. IIC. This pins (A4&A5) are use for supporting TWI communication. 

SPI. 

These pins (10,11,12,13) are use for supporting SPI communication. 

Tx & Rx pins.

This pins are use to transmit and receive TTL serial data. External interrupt. These pins (2 & 3)are use to activate an interrupt.