ESP32 Forum

after few hours of normal work, Arduino ide failed to load a new program, port is not seen by PC and the board led is off. If I press reset it lights and it goes off when I release reset.

Should I consider my esp32 dead? Is there any possible rescue?

thanks

'Port is not seen by PC' indicates that at least something more than the ESP32 is dead, as the USB-to-serial chip normally is responsible for this. What board do you use specifically?

The Pc usb port is fine. I'v used a new ESP32 and it works ok. The "old" esp32 is a esp-wroom32.
I now believe that I damaged it by connecting a led to a gpio having the anode fixed to +5 and ground on pin 35.

I had three boards die on me before. The usb-to-serial chip suddenly got very hot, maybe because of some unlucky connection I made, and then it remained dead.

It is critically important that one observes the current limitations of the output pins and always utilize a current limiting resistor. The ESP32 sink/source current is referenced to +3.3V and not to +5V, so if you are sinking current (output port goes low) and the LED is at +5 Volts, this is not a good practice and the current limiting resistor must be larger than if your were sinking the LED from +3.3V.

The maximum sink/source current is 12mA. The proper resistor value will depend on the color of the LED: https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2012/r ... -for-leds/
ALWAYS have a safety-margin and do not MAX out the current capability of the output port.

Ray