Lonely Binary
PinoutESP32-S332 pins

ESP32-S3 Pluggable Terminal Base pinout

Every way on the Lonely Binary ESP32-S3 Pluggable Terminal Base: 24 GPIOs on two 12-way push-in blocks, two 4-way power blocks, the display connector, and the twelve pins that stay off the edge.

ESP32-S3 Pluggable Terminal BaseInteractiveOpen the S3 Pluggable in 3DTurn the real board over and click any of its 32 holes. Every pad is placed from this design’s own net list.Open in 3D →

Reading this base

The base has no chip of its own. An ESP32-S3 Gold Edition plugs into the two 22-way sockets down the middle, antenna end toward the display connector. Each long edge then carries a 4-way power block and a 12-way signal block, all push-in: a bare wire goes into a way and a spring holds it. The shop lists this board as the Screwless Terminal base; it is the same board. Open it in 3D and click a way; the handbook covers using it.

The order is the S3 Gold's own, so anything true of a pin on the S3 Gold pinout is true of the same pin here.

What reaches the edge

Silkscreen order, display end first.

Left powerLeft signalRight powerRight signal
13V375V5
23V3153V36
3GND16GND42
4GND17GND41
51840
6839
7938
81048
91147
101221
111320
121419

That is 24 of the S3 Gold's 36 GPIOs, once each. Twelve do not come out: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 35, 36, 37, 43, 44, 45 and 46, and the RST pin. GPIO 1, 2 and 4 reach the display connector and nothing else. The numbering in the net list runs the other way on some blocks, so trust the silkscreen: it is the order in the table.

The marks beside the numbers

The back prints the buses as text: I²C on GPIO 8 (SDA) and 9 (SCL), SPI on 10 (SS), 11 (MOSI), 12 (SCK) and 13 (MISO), UART on 43 (TX) and 44 (RX), native USB on 19 (D−) and 20 (D+). The marks ~ (PWM), # (I²C) and ^ (SPI) sit beside the numbers on the top. All of the I²C and SPI pins are on the left block. UART is not brought out here, and USB, on the right block, is the S3's own port: leave 19 and 20 alone while a sketch is using it.

The display connector

A 15-way FPC socket on a 1.0 mm pitch at the top of the board. Contacts 3 to 15 are the same GPIOs as the ways on the blocks, where they have one.

ContactSignalContactSignal
1GND9GPIO10
23V310GPIO1
3GPIO4111GPIO15
4GPIO4212GPIO7
5GPIO213GPIO4
6GPIO1314GPIO6
7GPIO1215GPIO5
8GPIO11

A fitted display owns the lines it uses, so wire something else to the same way only if the display leaves that contact unused.

What the plugged-in board already uses

The base adds nothing to any net, so the pins to leave alone are the S3 Gold's. GPIO35, 36 and 37 carry the octal PSRAM on the N16R8 module and are not brought out here, which takes that mistake off the table. GPIO19 and 20 are the native USB port and GPIO48 is the board's RGB LED. The table below names each one.

Power

3V3, 5V and GND are the S3 Gold's own pins carried out; the base has no regulator. The 3V3 ways are the dev board's output, for sensors rather than for a second supply. The 5V way is the dev board's 5V pin.

Pins to leave alone

  • GPIO15 — ADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
  • GPIO16 — ADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
  • GPIO17 — ADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
  • GPIO18 — ADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
  • GPIO11 — ADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
  • GPIO12 — ADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
  • GPIO13 — ADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
  • GPIO14 — ADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
  • GPIO48 — WS2812B RGB LED, single-wire at 800 kHz. The silkscreen says RGB@IO48.
  • GPIO20 — Native USB-C, D+ . Wired straight to the USB-Serial-JTAG peripheral, no bridge chip in the path.
  • GPIO19 — Native USB-C, D− . Wired straight to the USB-Serial-JTAG peripheral, no bridge chip in the path.

Every pin

PinNameFunctionsNotes
3V33.3 V railpowerLP1. Output of the on-board regulator. Everything on the board runs from it, so budget what the regulator can spare, not what USB can deliver. A steady 3.3 V supply can also power the board through it, but never with USB plugged in at the same time.
3V33.3 V railpowerLP2. Output of the on-board regulator. Everything on the board runs from it, so budget what the regulator can spare, not what USB can deliver. A steady 3.3 V supply can also power the board through it, but never with USB plugged in at the same time.
GNDGroundpowerLP3. Ground. Several holes so a breadboard build has one nearby wherever it needs it.
GNDGroundpowerLP4. Ground. Several holes so a breadboard build has one nearby wherever it needs it.
GPIO7GPIO7gpio, adc1, touchL1
GPIO15GPIO15gpio, adc2ADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
GPIO16GPIO16gpio, adc2ADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
GPIO17GPIO17gpio, adc2, uartADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
GPIO18GPIO18gpio, adc2, uartADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
GPIO8GPIO8gpio, adc1, touch, i2cL6. Arduino default: Wire (I²C) SDA.
GPIO9GPIO9gpio, adc1, touch, i2cL7. Arduino default: Wire (I²C) SCL.
GPIO10GPIO10gpio, adc1, touch, spiL8. Arduino default: SPI (HSPI) SS.
GPIO11GPIO11gpio, adc2, touch, spiADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
GPIO12GPIO12gpio, adc2, touch, spiADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
GPIO13GPIO13gpio, adc2, touch, spiADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
GPIO14GPIO14gpio, adc2, touchADC2, so analogRead stops working the moment Wi-Fi starts. Unaffected as a digital pin.
5V5 V railpowerRP1. The USB rail, upstream of the regulator. Feed the board here if you are not using USB, or take 5 V out if you are.
3V33.3 V railpowerRP2. Output of the on-board regulator. Everything on the board runs from it, so budget what the regulator can spare, not what USB can deliver. A steady 3.3 V supply can also power the board through it, but never with USB plugged in at the same time.
GNDGroundpowerRP3. Ground. Several holes so a breadboard build has one nearby wherever it needs it.
GNDGroundpowerRP4. Ground. Several holes so a breadboard build has one nearby wherever it needs it.
GPIO5GPIO5gpio, adc1, touchR1
GPIO6GPIO6gpio, adc1, touchR2
GPIO42GPIO42gpio, jtagR3
GPIO41GPIO41gpio, jtagR4
GPIO40GPIO40gpio, jtagR5
GPIO39GPIO39gpio, jtagR6
GPIO38GPIO38gpioR7
GPIO48GPIO48gpioWS2812B RGB LED, single-wire at 800 kHz. The silkscreen says RGB@IO48.
GPIO47GPIO47gpioR9
GPIO21GPIO21gpioR10
GPIO20GPIO20gpio, adc2, usbNative USB-C, D+ . Wired straight to the USB-Serial-JTAG peripheral, no bridge chip in the path.
GPIO19GPIO19gpio, adc2, usbNative USB-C, D− . Wired straight to the USB-Serial-JTAG peripheral, no bridge chip in the path.

For this board

  • ESP32-S3 Expansion Base pinout — Every hole on the Lonely Binary ESP32-S3 Expansion Base: two 20-way strips a side on the same nets, 28 of the 36 GPIOs at the edge, the eight that stay on the sockets, and the 15-way display connector.
  • ESP32-S3 Screw Terminal Base pinout — Every way on the Lonely Binary ESP32-S3 Screw Terminal Base: two 15-way screw blocks, 26 GPIOs once each, 3V3 on the left and 5V on the right, and the ten GPIOs that do not come out.
  • 3-Axis Accelerometer — A Silan SC7A20H accelerometer on a TinkerBlock board: tilt, orientation, shakes and drops over two shared I²C wires, at address 0x19, with the pull-ups fitted. 3.3 V only.
  • PCA9685 16-Channel Servo Driver: Sixteen Servos on Two I²C Wires — A PCA9685 board that keeps sixteen servo pulses running by itself while the microcontroller talks to it over I²C. Servo power on V+ from USB-C or a screw terminal, the chip on VCC, six address pads, and a header on each edge so boards plug into each other. Three boards a box, headers soldered.
  • HotSwap Arcade Kit: Buttons, Joystick and Coin Acceptor for ESP32-S3, Nano, Pico and Zero 2 W — One mainboard for ten buttons, a joystick, a 12 V coin acceptor and an SPI screen, and four adapters that plug it into an ESP32-S3, a classic Arduino Nano, a Raspberry Pi Pico or a Zero 2 W. Pin tables for every adapter, the power arrangement, and the code.
  • Breadboard Power Adapters: Standard 5 V / 3.3 V, Step-Down and Booster — Three USB-C breadboard power adapters that plug into both pairs of rails at one end: a standard board with a 5 V / 3.3 V switch per side, a step-down that sets 1.25 to about 3.5 V, and a booster that sets about 4.3 up to 28 V. Which way round they go, why 5 V reads 4.7, and the half-amp fuse that limits all three.
  • CAN Bus — An SN65HVD230 CAN transceiver on a TinkerBlock board, for 3.3 V microcontrollers with a CAN controller of their own, such as every ESP32. CTX and CRX go straight across, the 120 Ω fitted on every board belongs only on the two end boards, GND runs with a twisted pair, and one board alone can never finish a message.
  • I2S Amplifier — An NS4168 I2S amplifier on a TinkerBlock board: the ESP32-S3 sends sound as numbers on three wires and the chip drives a 4 Ω speaker, about 1 W on 3.3 V. CTRL must be driven HIGH or it stays off, the L/R jumper picks which channel the mono chip plays, and neither speaker wire is ground.

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