#387 Test of Battery operated ESP32 Boards (Olimex, TinyPICO, EzSBC, TTGO)

Which ESP32 boards can be used for our battery-operated projects? How can we distinguish between good and bad designs? And how do these boards compare to the ones tested in earlier videos?
This time I have a global boards selection coming from Australia, Bulgaria, China, and the USA
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[StefanoBettega]

As a owner and a baker of TinyPICO board I'm really proud to see it here. Really useful video as usual! Thanks!

[UnexpectedMaker]

That was really well explained, and thanks for showing schematics to explain how each board implemented their PMIC/Regulators. The TinyPICO has VBAT and GND pins on the header next to each other - so there was no need solder wires to the JST connector pads ;) Also, max input voltage for the LDO is 6V not 12. I agree under voltage protection would be a great feature, but on a board the size of my TinyPICO, there's not much room to add it.

[BlackXeno]

Hi, I've been through the issue of the drop despite the capacitor. Isn't related to breadboard resistance, but the effect of the inductance of the connections. You can even use smaller ceramic, if placed at ESP chip pins. Electrolytic ones can't usually compensate for short, big spikes, despite their capacity

[theR]

It's 3:27 am currently .. I started watching but I can't help but falling into deep sleep myself .. I'll watch it later. 😉

[UnexpectedMaker]

Re the FeatherS2, unfortunately there is no auto-reset capability with the ESP32-S2 native USB implementation, so you just need to manually put it into download mode by holding BOOT and then pressing RESET and letting go of boot. Then it will enumerate and show up as a port in Arduino. Once it's been flashed once in Arduino (and you have Serial.begin() in your setup() - currently a bug in ESP32 Arduino Core), you no longer need to put it into download mode to flash it and it will enumerate as UMFeatherS2 in Arduino in the ports list.

[thedarkglovemusic]

I'm 1 min in and you already have a thumbs up. Thank you for doing these videos, they are always amazing.

[israelgiron]

Thank you for taking the time and effort for making it simple and easy to understand.
With an great overview of what's on of some of the most popular boards we are purchasing all over the internet.
A very handy one, thanks you Andreas! Just learned a lot.

[noweare]

Thank you for your hard work and sacrifice to pass your knowledge on to us. It is appreciated.

[rjhornsby]

“#no #midroll #ads” <- that alone earns this video a like. thank you. seriously.

[michaelbeljaars]

Have you thought about designing and making your own ideal esp32 deep sleep board? I am sure many here would be interested in purchasing such a board.

[neilbarnett]

Electrolytic capacitors use a wet dielectric, so they are famous for being slow. Tantalum are similar, but do tend to be faster, possibly because of their small size. Polyester and ceramic capacitors are good for regulation and decoupling, as you found.
This was all in one of my electronics magazines in the mid-70s.
I think if you can see the size of the voltage dip and the duration, then you can work out the charge that is needed and that will give you the best capacitor size. It's been a long time since I did that sort of thing, though.
Hope this helps someone.

[tinygriffy]

Thanks for the nice Oscilloscope Pictures and the in depth comparison, it helps very much when designing your own board ;)

[TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

A 100nF cap helps as electrolytic capacitor do not respond very well to high frequency current demands. also you should switch the battery divider in to circuit only while your ESP32 is active, as there is no point in dividing the current voltage if there is nothing to read it.

[acopernic]

Well done. The TTGO with battery holder may be a good choice

[avejst]

Impressive test, wow, and time consuming!!
Fantastic video as always
Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us👍😀

[andymouse]

Nice tests, fascinating to see the boards in a mini 'shootout' a great ftw.

[ch]

Wow, absolutely a great video and what we really need. I've been in the same dilemma trying to figure out what board to use with solar/battery devices, and see the board uses orders of magnitude more sleep power than the ESP. I always look forward to your tests, and glad to see the power monitoring device reports.

Only through reports like this will we get halfway decent boards to work with battery/ solar power.

The other problem is having to desolder SMD parts. I can hack a board but it is easy for board designers to add a MOSFET to stop power drain from the 5v input.

[jenskaa]

For solar charging you can add a 6v zener (or similar shunt) to shunt the solar cells. The voltage will only be over 6v when the battery is fully charged, and then it doesn't matter waisting power in the shunt.

[GlennHamblin]

Thanks for sharing your evaluation and results. I think the lack of under voltage protection is a mistake that can have negative consequences.

[christianl.]

Thanks to Andreas for the videos, which are definitely unique. What is the correct way to connect a solar panel to an input that says 6V max? I think this affects a few boards.