Hi,
I have powered my ESP32s with batteries before, but I have so far always used 5V through the 5V input pin. I now purchased a WiFi Kit V3, and wanted to power it with a 3.7V Li-Ion battery. I have a feeling that I am being quite dumb, and missing something obvious, but for some reason, the ESP32 did not power up from the battery. I connected it to the JST1.25 header on the bottom of the board.
Can someone help me understand what I am doing wrong?
JST wires are famous for not being color/orientation agnostic. In other words: it could well be the case that the colors red and black should be vice versa. I am not actually sure if the board is protected against current the wrong way round - so you might want to double check if it’s safe to reverse the voltage.
BTW - I assume you checked the voltage of the battery, and it’s actually charged?
Thanks for your reply.
Battery is charged. I also checked the wires themselves, and red wire does go to the +pin and black goes to -pin. So that was at least correct :D.
Am I at least correct in assuming, that the ESP32 could be powered through the JST header with a Li-Ion battery in the first place? Should it work like that out of the box, or have I skipped some important set-up step?
I don’t own one, but I’d be very surprised if that’s not supposed to work that way. If there’s a Charge LED on the board, you could try to connect the battery and USB, and see if the charge led lights up?
I don’t have a WiFi Kit module either, but I power all of my WiFi LoRa, Wireless Stick Lite and CubeCell [Plus] modules with Li-Ion batteries (14500 or 18650) connected through the JST 1.25 connector on the bottom of the boards. And yes, they all work like that ‘out of the box’.
Having said that, I almost always initially connect new modules via USB first, to check the serial output. I add this comment because I have had occasion to build my own Li-Ion battery management circuit and, in some cases, they require a ‘hit’ from the charging circuit voltage to turn on the [DW01A IC in the] charging circuit. So you could maybe just try powering the module from the USB connector (noting comments in other threads in relation to the requirements for USB cables) first, then see how you go with the battery.
