I'm new to esp8266 - I've decided to start my adventure using prototype board. So I soldered some wires to ESP12E, placed it on a prototype board with regards to all the instructions I've found on the internet (RST, EN and GPIO0 pulled up with a 10k resistor, GPIO15 pulled down with a 10k resistor, 3.3v from external power source managed by LM317). It all went fine, I was able to program ESP by pulling down GPIO0. My first project was using GPIO2 as an input and maybe that's important.
Now I've decided to move to PCB. I did everything as previously with one exception - LM1117 instead of LM317 and SMD items instead of THT. Double checked all the connections with a multimeter - all looks fine. However, despite GPIO15 is pulled down with a 10k resistor, when I debug my serial connection I see either boot mode 7,6 or 5,6 (depending on GPIO0 state). I'm not able neither to program ESP nor run the code.
I've read probably most topics on different sites, double, triple checked GPIO15 connection. I've even made a new PCB, soldered ESP once again - the same problem. Tried to short-circuit GPIO15 to GND - no result.
Do you have any ideas what alse can I check? Did anyone have the same problem?