ESP8266 Community Forum

- Mon Aug 20, 2018 8:09 am #77827

Yes you will have problems. It depends on how well you want your wifi to work. Those traces will alter the tuning and the radiation pattern.

I have seen commercial product designed with this kind of fault. I consider it totally unacceptable.

Hello Rudy.

I understand that the wifi will be affected.
But I have not had experience with this kind of mitigation and I do not know how much wifi could be affected in this case.
I do not know how you're going to behave to evaluate.
I'll use the ESP-12F.

How did the product that you saw work?

The best I could improve, it was like this:

- Mon Aug 20, 2018 9:58 am #77828 I did not have the products, I just saw pictures of them.

If you have no choice then use what you have to use. One change you can make is to move the trace for the switch to the left of the pads, rather than on the right as it is now. My approach would be to minimize any copper from the top of the antenna. The bottom is connected to ground and is at a lower impedance. I think that end would be less sensitive to nearby metal.

- Mon Aug 20, 2018 10:12 am #77829 Simply put: never question the designers guidelines provided by a manufacturer of a module.

Yes, an ESP might run on 5V but yes, it will eventually self destruct because of it.
Yes, you might want to ignore some antenna recommendations in a development phase but yes, it will eventually hit you in the face when production has already started.

Maybe a small primer on antenna design might give you some insight on why antennas are designed the way they are.

If you have the possibility, you could also opt for an ESP-07S, which is identical to the ESP-12, with the difference that it has a connector for an external antenna.

Assumption is the mother of all f*ckups. At least: that's what I'm assuming.

- Mon Aug 20, 2018 3:39 pm #77833

I did not have the products, I just saw pictures of them.

If you have no choice then use what you have to use. One change you can make is to move the trace for the switch to the left of the pads, rather than on the right as it is now. My approach would be to minimize any copper from the top of the antenna. The bottom is connected to ground and is at a lower impedance. I think that end would be less sensitive to nearby metal.

Many thanks for the suggestion!
I'll try to optimize and get as much metal as I can.