ESP32 voltage regulator

@cdavidl The ESP32CAM does indeed have a VR on it. Check randomnerds.com for diagram showing it. The board operates at 3.3V but since it has a USB inout, which is at 5V it needs the VR to drop it to 3.3V. Although you will see there is both a 3.3V and 5V output pin, they are very limited in current and probably should not be used by your car. Check the board specs (google) for ma, but it is likely 40ma. Randomnerds.com is the goto first place for info on most boards, see what they have on the subject.

I do not know what esp32cam sketch you plan to use but be aware that the facial recognition is very slow and was removed in a way that broke the library code. There are 2 ways to fix it, put your board back to ver 1.0.6, that is done in the board manager but be aware that affects everything you do and you might break it agian by updating by mistake. The other approcah I use now is to get ver 4. It is at HERE

After the download goto "Sketch/Include library/Add Zip kibrary..." in the IDE (my wording may be off but it's obvious)

@zander, Thanks for the help.  Your explanation about how the internal voltage regulator is used is very helpful.  I will use an external voltage regulator in the project.  

I've read a little about the facial recognition functionality, but I had not thought about using it.  I see some references to it in the sketch in the project, but I didn't realize it was part of the core library.  If I'm reading the documentation correctly, I should use a 3.x to get that.  I will keep that in mind.

I'll check out randomnerds.com.  Looks like a good resource.

Thanks!

David

@davidl Don't be shocked if the sketch doesn't compile. BTW, us old timers almost always crank up the compiler messages to ALL. Also check these other settings, all in Preferences under the Arduino main menu. When it doesn't compile, HMU and I will tell you how to deal with it.

@zander, Thanks again!  I'll be prepared for a failed compile.  It's going to be a while before I get to that point, but I will contact you when I'm there.

Regarding the compiler options, I've been using VSCode and PlatformIO instead of the Arduino so I might have different options.  I like to see all of the errors and warnings too, so I'll make sure I have the correct configuration.

Thanks.

Davidl

@davidl Good for you using VScode and platformio. Unfortunately I have not used that much so if you get an error I can tell you why, but don't know how to fix it. I really recommend using the V4 code, you lose facial detection but gain other things and it is being activly supported, the one you are using is retired.