I'm using the USB programmer where you can directly plug the ESP into. According to the various datasheets the pinouts of both board models are exactly the same, so they should work just fine (I even requested both sheets from the vendor). Except I have to permanently short CH_PD/EN and RST to even get the ESP to boot up and remain turned on. This happens for all ESP-01 boards, so I don't quite think it's a mass production glitch. As mentioned the 01s boards work just fine; I can just plug any one of them in there and it'll accept my flashes and properly boot without having to touch it.
Here's a video of me shorting the board and showing a little console output. It's not really visible here but I'm using one very short male-male jumper cable looped around to touch both pins with.
Some things I've already tried:
- I have multiple of those USB programmers, using a different one doesn't make a difference.
- Reseating the ESP a little differently (e.g. slightly angled forwards/backwards), but no change whatsoever.
- Since I also have some other boards, I also have a bare USB-TTL module which you can stick in a breadboard. But yet again nothing changes when I connect the ESP-01 this way.
- I have an externally powered USB hub, but connecting either USB adapter to that instead of directly plugging it into my laptop doesn't do anything either.
Anyone have any ideas why this problem occurs and how to fix it? Or is it somehow a design problem (since it happens for all boards) and I'll have to exchange them?