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Native KiCad files of Dev boards? (self.esp32)

submitted 2 weeks ago by Symphonic to c/[email protected]

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I am not much of an EE and I was wondering if there is a place where I can find schematics of popular esp32 dev boards? My hope is that I can do placement and wire routing on a known good schematic. I know that PDF version of the schematic is available and technically it is possible to recreate it in KiCad but I'm hoping to find something in native KiCad format so that I have a good starting point for making custom board shapes.

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[–] Grimy 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

If you mean with the little tin can, there isn't much to add, so you can probably manage yourself by reading some guidelines, its essentially just adding a few capacitors, two buttons, a regulator and a usb2uart. You can find some pre-made examples if you Google "esp32 kicad github".

The stuff under the tin can is a bit more complicated.

I'm not sure what your goal is though tbh. You need to understand the components you are using since there's quite a bit of complicated rules and researching and drawing the schematic is a big part of understanding them.

[–] Symphonic 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

My goal is to make a dev board with a custom layout. So if I can use ESP32-DevKitC as a starting point then I can focus on the board layout having some confidence that the component selection and the routing is done correctly. That'll have save me some design iterations.

Maybe you are right that it is simple enough to recreate it and I just need to give it a try.

[–] Grimy 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Few things to consider, you should have decoupling caps near the esp32s vcc and these need to be as close to it as possible. The antenna should be off the pcb completely and have gaps on its side, the module shouldn't be in the middle of the board for instance.

I think the new modules can be connected directly from usb and don't need uart, something to look into.

Tbh though, if it's to learn, I would make an arduino first. The atmega chip comes in a dip format so you can make the whole thing on bread board first.

A good ressource is the printedcircuitboards sub on reddit. They won't have kicad projects but will have vaste amounts of schematics that you can study and copy with comments outlining mistakes and things of that nature.

[–] Symphonic 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Thanks. These tips help a lot.

I wouldn't say that the goal is to learn. I have implemented the design on a Dev board. I also designed a breakout board which worked well. I am now considering just trying to do a new layout in a smaller form factor.

There are bigger system integration tasks that I need to address before I can spend my resources on learning ESP32's board layout. That is why I wanted to derisk my design by building on top of a known good design or at least find out the best practices of board layout.

[–] Grimy 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Here's the official schematic for the module. It's from the esp32 hardware reference in the official docs, under devkitc v4

https://dl.espressif.com/dl/schematics/esp32_devkitc_v4-sch-20180607a.pdf

Probably your best bet!

[–] Symphonic 2 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks!