I have designed a PCB for a small battery powered hand-held gaming device that utilises the ESP32-S3. I used the ESP32-S3 Zero dev board as a reference and closely followed the recommended layout from the chip’s datasheet. The PCB was manufactured by JLCPCB however it is not able to connect to a PC, and I do not know why and lack the experience to troubleshoot.

Does anyone know of any PCB review services that would be able to help?

I have included the schematic and PCB layout/gerbers in if anyone fancies having a quick look to see if it is something obvious and easy to fix but that is wishful thinking. I appreciate any help.

 

Hi, I can take a look, contact me privately.

 

Why post a zipped file of the circuit that needs to be correctly unzipped to examine it?? Post the actual circuit.

 

Hi, I can take a look, contact me privately.

I don't seem to have the ability to start a prvivate message, perhaps you could try to contact me and see if it will allow me to reply. Thanks.

 

Why post a zipped file of the circuit that needs to be correctly unzipped to examine it?? Post the actual circuit.

Here is the PDF of the schematic, and the reference schematics/datasheets I used. (I can't edit the post so the zips will have to stay for now, I also used the ESP32-S3 datasheet of course but didnt attach)

 

No reason to remove the zips, the PDF s work very well.

 

I don't seem to have the ability to start a prvivate message

You need 10 posts for the initiate a PM feature to be available.

 

Perhaps a "private Message" could be sent in the opposite direction? That could be a possible option.

And one comment is that I only see one actual circuit schematic among the several PDFs. The first sheet, 1 of 5, shows a reasonable interconnect circuits schematic drawing. Sheet Two, 2of 5, of the first PDF also shows a power supply circuit, which looks like a well designed supply. Beyond that all I see is isolated connection details which make a functional evaluation based on signal paths quite a serious challenge, at least for me.

 

Perhaps a "private Message" could be sent in the opposite direction? That could be a possible option.

And one comment is that I only see one actual circuit schematic among the several PDFs. The first sheet, 1 of 5, shows a reasonable interconnect circuits schematic drawing. Sheet Two, 2of 5, of the first PDF also shows a power supply circuit, which looks like a well designed supply. Beyond that all I see is isolated connection details which make a functional evaluation based on signal paths quite a serious challenge, at least for me.

Yes, perhaps that would work for now.

The first sheet is my schematic that needs checking, the rest are reference scematics and/or datasheets that I used. I think the issue lies in the microcontroller somewhere, the MCU circuit is on sheet 3 of 5 in the first pdf. Thank you for having a look anyway, I appreciate it.

 

Yes, perhaps that would work for now.

The first sheet is my schematic that needs checking, the rest are reference scematics and/or datasheets that I used. I think the issue lies in the microcontroller somewhere, the MCU circuit is on sheet 3 of 5 in the first pdf. Thank you for having a look anyway, I appreciate it.

If the connection identifications on the blocks are correct then I see no fault with the interconnect drawing.

 

so you designed PCB, had it made, it does not work and you are asking for PCB review but at no point you posted your actual PCB design. since the request is to evaluate PCB design, i will assume that schematics is ok and does not need review but how can we tell if something is wrong with the board? what settings did you use? whose libraries did you use? did you confirm that pinouts match your part versions? did you use DRC? how it was assembled? who did the assembly? are you sure that part orientation is correct? are you familiar with ESD?

based on what i see in schematics, most parts are using generic value labels and not actual part numbers. that tells me that you ordered PCBs and assembled them yourself. so what was your strategy? did you do incremental build and test each stage along the way or.... populate everything and pray for to your lucky star? can you post photos of the soldering job? if i have to assemble board myself, i do it one part at a time (no reflow oven, need to rectify that). first passives, then semiconductors that are least sensitive, and check things while i can - why waste opportunity when most of the board is empty and does not interfere? the parts most sensitive to ESD are placed last. other parts that are already on the board help protecting the sensitive parts.
also on prototypes i tend to put test points and solder jumpers in various places to help me isolate parts of the circuit or bypass it if needed. for measurements i use bench DMM (Good old Keithley2000) with long and sharp probe extensions. standard DMM probes are too dull to work on small parts.

and how are you testing? what are you using to power the board? i test all designs with bench PSU and with current limit so that if there are mistakes, things do not get fried and make the job 10x bigger.

 

"Not able to connect to a PC" sounds to me a lot like a software problem/fault. And the one likely issue I see on the first sheet block diagram is no USB connection or wireless link.
So the big flaw is no connectivity. At least that is the appearance.

 

"Not able to connect to a PC" sounds to me a lot like a software problem/fault. And the one likely issue I see on the fist sheet block diagram is no USB connection or wireless link.
So the big flaw is no connectivity. At least that is the appearance.

USB-C connector on page 2...

No antenna connected to pin 1 so no WiFi/BLE

I think the issue lies in the microcontroller somewhere, the MCU circuit is on sheet 3 of 5 in the first pdf. Thank you for having a look anyway, I appreciate it.

Did you breadboard any of this or just drew the schematics from the reference designs?

Connecting to PC via USB direct connect to ESP32-S3 requires onboard USB firmware which I believe is loaded for serial JTAG debugging but not programming by default. AFAIK this isn't supported by the standard IDEs which require a USB-UART connection via an external CH340/CP2102 chip.