ESP8266 Community Forum

- Wed Dec 12, 2018 4:41 am #79528 I have a WEMOS mini pro 1.0.0.
I want to make a new PCB that will have low power consumption (puting off circuit some components (CP2104 ,RT9013) with swithces and supplying voltage (3.3V) with a dc-dc converter).
And if I want to put them again in the circuit, I put the switches to ON.
The current PCB is too tiny to make these mods on it.

I want to remove the components from it and 'move' them to this new PCB that I'm going to make.
(I repeat, the reason for the new PCB is that I want to make it work in low consumption)

So I want to add to the new PCB:
1. swicthes to the VIO and VDD pins of CP2104 that will put them ON or OFF the circuit
2. switch to the VIN pin of RT9013

Something else that I should add the ability to put it off circuit?
Is my idea good?

(how can I desolder the antenna connector on the PCB? part of it is plastic. I think hot air could destroy it. With soldering iron maybe?)
(I 'm using WEMOS because it has extended range of WiFi)
It 's schematic is this: https://wiki.wemos.cc/_media/products:d ... v1.0.0.pdf

- Wed Dec 12, 2018 6:34 am #79529 Wouldn't choosing a separate ESP-module (ESP-01 ~ ESP-14) be more practical?

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

- Wed Dec 12, 2018 6:54 am #79530 1. How shall I achieve the extended range of WiFi that the Wemos offers? (because it takes an external antenna). Is there an ESP8266 that can take an external antenna?
2. How shall I program it? Shall I have to put it in some kind of an external programmer so that through USB port I 'll upload a sketch using Arduino IDE?

EDIT: ESP8266 ESP-07 maybe?

- Wed Dec 12, 2018 7:27 am #79531 You can have a look at this page in our wiki and see what board suits best (eg. number of needed GPIO's and things like an external antenna connector).
Please note that ESP modules with both an internal antenna and an external antenna connector have a jumper that by default Is set to the internal antenna, which has to be moved or removed when using the external connector.

You can program ESP-modules using a FTDI USB -> serial adapter (set to 3.3V): either make a programming jig or add a serial programming connector (or pins) to your design.
When programming a separate ESP-module, you'll be missing the auto-reset and auto-flash feature a Wemos has, so you'll have to do this manually (pull GPIO0 LOW and do a RESET to enter flash-mode).

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