ESP32 Dev Board with latest WROOM-32E module, USB Type-C, 800mA LDO, 8MB flash and PTC fused.

After receiving too many boards that were DOA (dead-on-arrival) or that came with cheap power regulators causing power resets, I decided to design my own dev board.

Big shout-out to the developers of WLED and LedFX which sparked my interest in the world of addressable LEDs and audio reactive. Please consider donating to their projects if you are using them.

If you are looking for a great Shield for your WLED ESP based projects, I highly recommend looking at the WLED Wemos Shield by Serg74. You can order his PCBs and assemble it by yourself or buy one from his Tindie store

What is it?

TwilightLord-ESP32 is a custom ESP32 Dev board based on the D1 Mini32 but with many updates to it, this means it is a drop-in replacement for any design using a D1 Mini32 (same dimensions), which in term is also pin compatible with the original D1 Mini (ESP8266 based):

• ESP32-WROOM-32E which is the latest revision that includes the ESP32-D0WD-V3 chip (link) (latest on the ECO line with improved power consumption and stability over the V0 that most ESP32 dev boards include)
• 8MB flash, double what most dev boards include. Plenty of space for complex Arduino projects, with OTA slots, larger SPIFFs partitions for your data (store your HTMLs in flash and not as string literals consuming memory), etc.
• USB Type-C connector for data and power
• ESD USB protection. Most D1 Mini clones lack of electrostatic discharge protection.
• PTC Fused that trips at 750ma. This will stop the board from taking more than its traces can handle, protecting the board from early failures.
• 800mA Linear 3.3v LDO regulator. It provides plenty of current to prevent the power resets that occur with other boards with 250mA-500mA regulators, when using multiple GPIOs current spikes can cause power resets if the regulator cannot handle it. Plenty of D1 Mini32 clones come with 250mA regulators.
• Plenty of capacitors added to guarantee stable power delivery to the ESP32.
• D1 Mini and Mini32 pin compatible. 9-pin rows used instead of 10-pin ones since WROOM-32E drops a few pins (connected to internal flash) so no need for 20 pins any longer. Skip the first pin (next to USB connector) if plugging it to a 10-pin header.
• CP2104 USB-to-serial (USB to UART) controller with up to 2Mbits Baud rate. Write the WROOM flash in just over 10 seconds.
• BOOT and RESET buttons. Most compact form factor dev boards only come with RESET button, not allowing you to enter bootloader download mode by just pressing buttons.
• Autoprogram circuit included. Tools like esptool and ESPHome-Flasher can restart the ESP32 in bootloader download mode for programming.

Useful environment configuration files

Here are some files that might help you configure the module in your environment:

• Sample partitions file for the 8MB Flash, with 2 OTA Slots, EEPROM and SPIFF. Copy it to the root folder of your PlatformIO project (copy or download) 

  # Name,   Type, SubType, Offset,  Size, Flags
  nvs,      data, nvs,     0x9000,  20K,
  otadata,  data, ota,     0xe000,  8K,
  app0,     app,  ota_0,   0x10000, 3M,
  app1,     app,  ota_1,          , 3M,
  eeprom,   data, 153,            , 4K,
  spiffs,   data, spiffs,         , 1980K,
  

• Board definition file for PlatformIO. Copy it to a to folder named boards in the root folder of your PlatformIO project or your <PROFILE>/.platformio/boards folder (copy or download)

  {
  "build": {
      "arduino": {
      "ldscript": "esp32_out.ld"
      },
      "core": "esp32",
      "extra_flags": "-DARDUINO_ESP32_DEV",
      "f_cpu": "240000000L",
      "f_flash": "40000000L",
      "flash_mode": "dio",
      "mcu": "esp32",
      "variant": "esp32",
      "partitions": "partitions_8M.csv"
  },
  "connectivity": [
      "wifi",
      "bluetooth",
      "ethernet",
      "can"
  ],
  "debug": {
      "openocd_board": "esp-wroom-32.cfg"
  },
  "frameworks": [
      "arduino",
      "espidf"
  ],
  "name": "TwilightLord-ESP32 8MB",
  "upload": {
      "flash_size": "8MB",
      "maximum_ram_size": 327680,
      "maximum_size": 8388608,
      "require_upload_port": true,
      "speed": 2000000
  },
  "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP32",
  "vendor": "TwilightLord"
  }

• Sample Environment definition for your platformio.ini file (copy or download)

  [env:twilightlord-esp32-8MB]
  board = twilightlord-esp32-8MB
  platform = [email protected]
  build_unflags = ${env:esp32dev.build_unflags}
  build_flags = ${env:esp32dev.build_flags}
  lib_ignore = ${env:esp32dev.lib_ignore}
  upload_speed=2000000

Pinout

Bottom View

				PCB ANTENNA
GND	TXD						RST	GND
IO27	RXD						SVP	GND*
IO25	IO22						IO26	SVN
IO32	IO21						IO18	IO35
IO12	IO17						IO19	IO33
IO4	IO16						IO23	IO34
IO0	GND						IO5	IO14
IO2	5v0						3v3	3v3*
NC	IO15						IO13	NC

* Pins are NC (Not Connected) on D1 Mini32 boards. Just to be safe , it is recommended to not solder them if you are plugging this module to a board designed for a D1 Mini32, if you do just make sure on those boards these pins are NC.

---

Top View (component side)

				PCB ANTENNA
GND	RST						TXD	GND
GND*	SVP						RXD	IO27
SVN	IO26						IO22	IO25
IO35	IO18						IO21	IO32
IO33	IO19						IO17	IO12
IO34	IO23						IO16	IO4
IO14	IO5						GND	IO0
3v3*	3v3						5v0	IO2
NC	IO13						IO15	NC

* Pins are NC (Not Connected) on D1 Mini32 boards. Just to be safe , it is recommended to not solder them if you are plugging this module to a board designed for a D1 Mini32, if you do just make sure on those boards these pins are NC.

Board Pictures

IMPORTANT SILKSCREEN PINOUT IN OLD 1.0r5 version

The silkscreen on this rev has the right columns switched on rows 2-8 (inner vs outer). The pinout looking from the bottom of the board is as follows. Please follow this instead.