Would you like to learn to program an ESP32? Don’t know where to start? Building your own ESP32 learning kit will accelerate and ease your learning curve. See below to find out.
Introduction
A learning kit is a fun way to learn about electronics. Most beginners can benefit from purchasing such a kit. However, if you’re on a tight budget and have spare off-the-shelf components available, it wouldn’t hurt to build one yourself. Here, you’ll learn to assemble a simple learning kit for your ESP32 Devkit modules.
With this kit, you’ll be able to learn simple tasks such as lighting an LED or detecting button presses. You’ll also learn sophisticated tasks such as acquiring sensor data, running an OLED screen, or observing RTOS thread behaviors through buttons, LED indicators and a display device.
That said, you could later build your own prototype PCBÂ from this learning kit module.Â
Components to Prepare
RGB LED indicators, transistors, tact switches, a DHT11 sensor module, a 10k Potentiometer, and an OLED Serial Display make up the primary components of this kit. Additionally, get an ESP32 Devkit module that has accessible pins.
- 3 pcs. RGB LED strip (min strip)
- 3 pcs. 3-pin header connectors
- 9 pcs. 2N3904 or 2N2222 or equivalent
- 9 pcs. 4.7k ohm 0.25W resistors
- 3 pcs. tactile buttons
- 1 pc. Breadboard
- Solid connecting wires
- 1 pc. DHT11 Temp Sensor Module
- 1 pc. 128xOLED Serial Display Module
- 1 pc. ESP32 DevKit
Wire the Components and Connect them to your ESP32 Devkit
The wiring below is for a 30-pin ESP32 Devkit V1 module. However, with some modifications, you may adapt this to a Wemos LOLIN D32 or even the Huzzah32 and ESP32-S2 Feather Boards. Whichever unit you have, what’s important is proper connection to your ports that has digital or special-purpose functions. The table below will guide you accordingly.Â
Custom ESP32 Learning Kit Connections
| ESP32 PIN | Function | Component |
|---|---|---|
| LEDSTRIP GPIO PORTS | ||
| D32 | GPIO OUT | RGB LED STRIP 1 |
| D33 | GPIO OUT | RGB LED STRIP 1 |
| D25 | GPIO OUT | RGB LED STRIP 1 |
| D26 | GPIO OUT | RGB LED STRIP 2 |
| D27 | GPIO OUT | RGB LED STRIP 2 |
| D14 | GPIO OUT | RGB LED STRIP 2 |
| D12 | GPIO OUT | RGB LED STRIP 3 |
| D13 | GPIO OUT | RGB LED STRIP 3 |
| D15 | GPIO OUT | RGB LED STRIP 3 |
| BUTTONS PORTS | ||
| D34 | GPIO IN | TACT SW1 |
| D35 | GPIO IN | TACT SW2 |
| D36/VP | GPIO IN | TACT SW3 |
| POTENTIONMETER PORT | ||
| D4 | ADC2_0 IN | POTENTIOMETER |
| TEMP/HUMIDITY SENSOR PORT | ||
| D23 | GPIO OUT/IN | DGT11 MODULE |
| OLED PORTS | ||
| D22 | I2C-SCL | 128x64 OLED |
| D21 | I2C-SDA | 128x64 OLED |
Here is an actual snapshot for prototype of the breadboarded learning kit.
In the future, you should be able to make your own PCB with this learning kit module. Â
Next Steps...
You can now start creating a new ESP-IDF project for this board to practice your coding skills…
