The four pins
GND, VCC, NC and SIGNAL, counted from the square pad. Three are wired: GND to GND, VCC to your board's logic voltage, SIGNAL to an analog pin. NC is connected to nothing on the board, and stays empty.
Three wires and a spare
From the square pad, which is GND:
- GND to your board's GND. The bottom of the ladder, of R14 and of C3.
- VCC to your board's logic voltage: 5V on an Uno, 3V3 on an ESP32, an ESP32-S3 or a Pico. The top of the ladder.
- NC to nothing. The net list puts this hole in no net: its pad joins no trace.
- SIGNAL to an analog pin: A0 on an Uno, GPIO 34 on an ESP32, GPIO 4 on an ESP32-S3, GP26 on a Pico.
The header's own pin numbers run the other way, SIGNAL as pin 1 and GND as pin 4; the silkscreen and the square pad are what to go by.
Why an analog pin
SIGNAL carries one of six voltages, and only an ADC can tell them apart. The pins above are the ones that can: the Uno's A0 to A5, the ESP32's ADC1 pins (ADC2 stops reading while Wi-Fi is on), the S3's GPIO 1 to 10, the Pico's GP26 to GP28. The book uses the first free one on each, the same as the TK21 uses for its X axis, so the two blocks cannot share a wiring without moving one.
NC is not a fault
"NC" means not connected. It is not a missing part or a broken trace: the footprint has four holes because every small TinkerBlock has four, and this block needs three.
When it does not work
The square pad. Seen from the parts side with the header at the bottom it is on the left, and the silkscreen reads GND, VCC, NC, SIGNAL from there. Seen from the back the square pad is on the right.
It is a hole with a pad and nothing else: no trace leaves it. It is there so every four-pin TinkerBlock has the same header. You can plug a wire into it; nothing happens either way.
SIGNAL is on an ADC2 pin, which the ESP32 shares with its radio. Use an ADC1 pin: GPIO 34, as this book does, or 32 to 39. On an ESP32-S3, GPIO 1 to 10 are ADC1.
Why VCC is your board's logic voltage and not whichever supply is handy.
VCC sets the top →Edit this page — content/books/five-direction-joystick/the-four-pins.mdx
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