TinyC6 - ESP32-C6 Dev Board with Onboard Antenna

by Unexpected Maker

Introducing the TinyC6 which includes the new Espressif ESP32-C6 MCU.

The ESP32-C6 is the first WiFi 6 (2.45GHz) MCU from Espressif, that also has a high and low-performance RISC-V core and Zigbee + Thread support!

Features

  • 32Bit High Perf RISC-V processor up to 160MHz
  • 32-bit Low Power RISC-V processor at 20Mhz
  • 2.4GHz WiFi 6 - 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth 5.3 (LE) + Mesh
  • Zigbee and Thread (802.15.4)
  • 8MB QSPI Flash
  • USB-C Connector
  • Reverse USB back-feed protection
  • 700mA 3.3V LDO Regulator
  • Ultra low deep sleep current
  • Low Power RGB LED
  • VBAT voltage check and 5V presence detection
  • LiPo Battery Charging
  • JST pads on the back supports PH connector
  • Power (red), Charge (orange) LEDs
  • 17x GPIO broken out
  • Serial UART & Serial JTAG
  • 3D High Gain Antenna
  • Compatible with TinyPICO, TinyS2 & TinyS3

Tiny Board Comparison Matrix

Pinout

TinyC6

  • Board Dimensions: 35mm x 17.8mm
  • Max Thickness: 4.3mm at the USB-C end

Platforms

This board ships with CircuitPython pre-installed!

The TinyC6 ships with an early alpha version of CircuitPython that supports the ESP32-C6.

There is also Arduino support in the upcoming 3.0.0 version of the ESP32 Arduino Core (currently in alpha) and IDF support in release 5.1 and later.

Please Note: The ESP32-C6 doesn't have native USB - so in CircuitPython it will not present itself as a mass storage device like ESP32-S2 and ESP32-S3 devices do. To connect to the TinyC6 to access the Flash file system or for REPL access, you connect to it via the serial port like you do with an ESP32-C3 or original ESP32.

Adafruit recommend using thonny for CircuitPython development on boards that don't have native USB. Once installed, select CircuitPython from the interpreter list in options, and then select the serial port for your TinyC6.

If you need to re-flash CircuitPython back on to your TinyC6, for now the shipping version is available from here, and you can flash it to your board any following these instructions:

  • 1.Download the firmware
  • 2 Put your board into download mode
  • 3. Flash it with the following command, changing {PORT} to the correct port on your computer/OS:

esptool.py -p {PORT} --before=default_reset --after=no_reset write_flash 0x0000 cp_tinyc6_firmware_9_alpha_5.bin

If you plan to develop in the Arduino IDE, please ensure you have the latest alpha version of 3.0.0 (or later) installed via the board manager, using the Development release link via these instructions provided by Espressif. Please note that though ESP32-C6 support is included, the UMTinyC6 board definition will not be available until the next alpha or beta release. It was merged after alpha 2 was released.

Resources

Looking for TinyC6 schematics or other documentation? Check out the Unexpected Maker Help website for more information.