I just bought this Hiletgo ESP32 from Amazon. Seems to work fine if I just connect an LED to the 3.3V output, but then I tried to hook up a Neopixel LED strip via the 5V pin. That works perfectly with a different ESP32 from Adafruit, but I can’t get the lights to light up at all with the Hiletgo. (Compiles and uploads, just doesn’t do anything.) More importantly, the board around the reset button gets REALLY hot—like, burned-my-finger, might-start-a-fire hot.
I’m new to all of this, so my question is: do I have a defective board, or am I doing something wrong here?
And if it’s the board, are there affordable brands that y’all trust for safety and reliability?
So now I'm confused. A lot of the tutorials I've gone through use the board as a power supply to one degree or another as I understand it—any time you run an LED off the board (via a GPIO pin or simply the 3.3V or 5V out), aren't you using the board as a power supply?
For a VERY LOW current, OK for testing an LED. But it is NOT for powering anything more than 3mA-5mA per pin. Even then, on customer boards, I drive LEDs with transistors.
Tutorials should be followed with a look at the datasheet for the chip BEFORE powering the board.
The ESP32's 3.3V regulator is rated to power the ESP32 if every pin and internal component is used at the same time. Using the ESP32's power supplied by the internal regulator to power external devices is taking a risk.
I see. Can you help me understand the nature of the risk? Specifically: I think I understand why the board might not provide sufficient power to the LEDs. But why would that result in overheating?