ESP8266 Community Forum

This is the 3rd ESP device that's done this.

First one was a ESP-07 (with adc) - that was just on a breadboard with regulator etc. that one blew two regulators and seems to have reversed its polarity (3.3v/GND measure about 200mV DC-)

Second one was an ESP-12 on one of those basic white breakout boards.

Third time is a NodeMCU devkit v1.0 with ESP-12e on it - the CP2102 chip still works as my computer detects the usb device, but the esp8266 isn't detected when i try to flash it. I tried feeding 3.3v to the pins directly which got me a power light at least, but the wifi doesn't connect, there's no blue light and the script doesn't run. Again, it gets very hot and the regulator measures a small reverse polarity.

I desoldered the ESP12e, well pretty much pulled it off, I can't desolder SMD kit! Anyway, the regulator measures a normal 3.3v now, so its not the NodeMCU devkit but the ESP12e that's the problem.

I know other people have noticed this on reddit, was just wondering if anyone knew why or how to avoid it, I'm not prepared to by any more espresiff kit until I can avoid them frying themselves. Funnily enough the only ones that still work fine as ESP-01's.

I wonder if the tin covers are shorting something?

Quite honestly: if ESPs were really dying at such an alarming rate, I reckon there would be a lot more complaints here...
So the real question here is: what are you doing with your ESPs? There might be something wrong with your circuit, that might cause damage to your modules.

I agree with lethe here !
I'have more than 15 ESPs, the only one who died was my first ESP-03 when I tried to replace the Flash for a bigger one and many soldering pads lifted off ...

I have destroyed a few ESPs ... but in each case, I was able to determine the root cause was my error. Either reverse voltage, over voltage or voltage applied to the wrong pins.