[Solved] ESP 32 best breadboard layout - advice sought

@ronbentley1

Posted by: @ronbentley1

Hi all,

if you are reading this then I have passed to the dark side and now have my first ESP 32 board to set up and start using.  It's not goodbye to Arduino, more a chance to extend my understanding and experience!

Anyway, my Amazon order arrived a day early and I unpacked the ESP 32 board, just that, nothing else, just some links to web sites. Fair enough, it was cheap (very cheap) so I expected a bit of hassle to get it plugged in and working. 

But, no.  I plugged it in, selected the board in the IDE, assigned a port and ...  bingo! It ran my sketches without any problem (so far)! Result!

However, what I realised was that just having the ESP 32 hanging at the end of a USB cable is perhaps not that helpful.  So out with the breadboard. Hmm, a single breadboard isn't quite broad enough to allow full pin connections.  So, I come to the purpose of this post:

Can someone advise me on a practical arrangement of breadboards that I can power with a 3.3v power source and also give good access to all pins of the ESP 32?

Any suggestions are welcome.  Thank you in advance.

Regards

Ron B

Glad to hear that you have made the change to explore the ESP 32 boards, and hope they open up some more horizons for you.  I am yet to explore that avenue myself, but I am feeling more and more inspired to delve into them, the more I hear about them.

Good luck with your new projects 🙂

Cheers.

Would this help. Change .ca to the country of choice.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00KHE7O7Q/?coliid=IF2UL67PPMMHR&colid=1CX6M18JA0LDM&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

Posted by: @ronbentley1

Hi all,

if you are reading this then I have passed to the dark side and now have my first ESP 32 board to set up and start using.  It's not goodbye to Arduino, more a chance to extend my understanding and experience!

Anyway, my Amazon order arrived a day early and I unpacked the ESP 32 board, just that, nothing else, just some links to web sites. Fair enough, it was cheap (very cheap) so I expected a bit of hassle to get it plugged in and working. 

But, no.  I plugged it in, selected the board in the IDE, assigned a port and ...  bingo! It ran my sketches without any problem (so far)! Result!

However, what I realised was that just having the ESP 32 hanging at the end of a USB cable is perhaps not that helpful.  So out with the breadboard. Hmm, a single breadboard isn't quite broad enough to allow full pin connections.  So, I come to the purpose of this post:

Can someone advise me on a practical arrangement of breadboards that I can power with a 3.3v power source and also give good access to all pins of the ESP 32?

Any suggestions are welcome.  Thank you in advance.

Regards

Ron B

The examples in your IDE File menu is a start, then after a while I will lead you to the place the really sharp knives are kept.

@zander 

Thanks Ron, I've ordered one. Pretty expensive though and divery lead time 10 days!

Anyway I've already had several of my arduino sketches running and now looking at implementing my switch debounce code and linking to several external interrupts.

As far as I can see it should be straight forward, but I will see.

Regards

Ron B

@ronbentley1 Yes, I have yet to order one because when I saw it elsewhere it had a matchng siicone mat. The big board fit snugly into a recess. I want the whole enchilada so I keep ooking for that other part.

If I were you, I would just try compiling the code with the ESP board selected in board manager. I bet it compiles clean.

@ronbentley1 I suspect that big board will need jumpers to get a row wider than what you have now. If/when I get one I will be using these jumpers to connect one board row(X axis) to the next. Change the .ca to your choice of country to see if it's there, otherwise search for similar name.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B08YRGVYPV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

@zander 

Yep, I already use these routinely to keep breadboard cabling neat and tidy.

They are very handy and I do recommend them.

👍

@ronbentley1, Indeed, I have them too.. and as a matter of fact, used one of them to repair a solar garden lite yesterday when I had to replace the yx8018 chip. the traces on the chips are a bit tender, and I managed to pull part of one up when de-soldering the chip.. so it was a very convenient way to repair that trace...lol  I also have several different breadboards for modeling my designs before hard wiring to circuit boards..

As a side note I use TinkerCad's circuit simulation to work out the circuit design before I even try to use actual components. This saves me a lot of headaches with letting the "smoke out" of the devices I intend to use..an example of using TinkerCad for experimenting on using a L293D motor driver with a 12v motor and encoder in a PID simulation. I'm designing my own PID software so I can use features like setpoint tracking, Auto/Manual control, and cascading controller modes.. of course these are advance features in automation control, but then that's what I did for a living for 40 years...lol 

@inst-tech That's a very cool looking tool (Tinkercad)

@inst-tech 

Thanks for the post and the tinkercad pointer, I will explore this further.

Ron B