Howdy! Took a look at the schematic—some random notes, in no particular order:
- Are you sure you calculated your current budget correctly? Looking at the datasheet for the LEDs you use, they need up to 12mA each, and the ESP32 can take big gulps of 100-200mA, especially when WiFi is on, so you could pull 400mA or more, and that's without accounting for the regulator and serial chip. You might end up exceeding 500mA total consumption, which could result in your USB supply current limiting you and causing glitches when your LEDs are all on at maximum brightness.
- Similarly, if you want a fuse, 2A seems way too high to me…
- There is a LED_OUT label in both the regulator section and the ESP32 section; as it is, I think D20 may effectively be tied to R10, which is probably not what you want. I'm not sure, though—perhaps labels don't carry across sheets, but I would not use the same for both nets, just to be safe.
- What is the purpose of R23? I don't think it's necessary.
The ESP32 comes with its own bootloader; as long as you have a proper serial connection, you shouldn't have any problems. However, I would not bother adding a USB to serial interface on the board unless you expect to program the chip very often (and even then, I would probably suggest you use OTA updates). I would consider simply routing out the serial pins and using an external FTDI breakout like
this one: they're cheap, they don't take up board space, and someone has already done the legwork of figuring out how to make them work. If you absolutely need the serial chip… you would probably be better off just using an off-the-shelf ESP32 breakout
It's not hard to solder the ESP32 to a PCB; the castellated connections require a little more care than a THT component, but they're not a big deal. On the other hand, it might be good to have JLC mount at least the LEDs; their PNP machine will position components much more accurately than you can if you assemble the board by hand, and the end result will look much neater. Consider having them also assemble all the passives—that way, you can use smaller components that can save board space. For example, I've attached below a picture of a board they assembled for me, and it looks a million times better than the prototype I had soldered by hand (I soldered the ESP32 here, but they did the LEDs and passives). As I recall, it was pretty inexpensive to have 5 fabricated, and it looks good enough that several friends have one in their living rooms.
Good luck!
—CC
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