More Brain Power

Published on 2017-06-14 in D1 Mini Tote.

It has been a while since the last update, and there have been some developments. I will write about them in detail in separate logs when I get more time to do it properly. But today I just wanted to share a new part that I’m excited bout.

There is a new development board, based on the ESP32 chip, but pin- compatible with the D1 Mini. It’s called MH-ET LIVE D1 apparently (I know), and looks like this:

The pins marked in white are compatible with the D1 Mini, and all the other pins are extra. Apart from the ESP-WROOM-32 module, there is the usual voltage regulator, CP2104 serial USB chip and a pair of mosfets for the reset circuit – nothing special. All parts are on the same side of the PCB, the bottom is flat – which is nice. I didn’t lay my hand on that board yet, I’m waiting for it to arrive, but from I can tell it should fit the D1 Mini Tote PCBs. I might need to add a shield on the bottom, to make the extra pins stick out over the servo sockets, or use angled headers for the servo sockets – we will see about that.

So why so excited? Well, initially I couldn’t decide whether to go with the D1 Mini or the Feather boards. I like the form factor (and price) of the D1 Mini better, but Feather has more options for me to choose from (I even got an ESP32 Feather recently, but didn’t have a chance to do anything with it yet). So I started both this project and the SpiderWing . Now seeing that the D1 Mini footprint becomes a kind of a standard, I’m hoping that both versions will become equally viable.