ESP8266 Community Forum

Hi all,

I just got me a HUZZAH ESP8266 breakout board to start exploring the ESP

I am however not sure if I should use external power. I now have it set up like this:



So I'm using a console cable:
- black wire to ground
- red wire to V+
- white wire to TX
- green wire to RX

In this setup the current would be drawn from the USB port. But 500mA ? Isn't that a bit much ?
I'm plugging it in to my desktop PC.

I have an external 5V power supply, should I connect this to V+ ?

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-huz ... odemcu-lua

Power Pins

The ESP8266 requires 3.3V power voltage and peaks at 500mA or so of current for small periods of time. You'll want to assume the ESP8266 can draw up to 250mA so budget accordingly. To make it easier to power, we put a high-current-capable 3.3V voltage regulator on the board. It can take 3.4-16V and supply the current for the ESP8266.

There are two inputs for the regulator, V+ and VBat. Both have schottky diodes so you can connect both at different voltages and the regulator will simply power from the higher voltage. The V+ pin is also on the FTDI/serial header at the bottom edge.

We recommend connecting your LiPoly or AA battery pack directly to VBat and then keeping V+ unused for when an FTDI cable is attached

This confuses me...
- I'm using the console cable, not FTDI right ?
- I don not have a LiPo battery

Does this mean I should connect an external external 5V to V+ ?

Thanks !

The short answer is: Yes. It sounds like that is the supply pin for the on-board regulator.

500ma is how much USB ports are designed to deliver to any random device you plug in. Some high current USB devices can request more current from the port.

It's a little confusing the way they have worded it. I think what they are talking about is:

Adafruit sells an FTDI device so that is probably the FTDI they are referring to, and I'm guessing that it has the "standard" FTDI pinout. When they say "make sure the black wire goes to ground", they are referring to being able to use the cable included with their FTDI device to connect directly to the board without having to re-arrange anything.

FTDI usb chips have a lot of advanced features that you don't need if you just wanted a tty rs232 console, and something like a cp2102 (still semi-advanced) or a ch340g (cheap & effective!) is much cheaper.

So in the case that you are using something other than their FTDI product to connect to the Huzzah board, you should use the pinout specified.

From the Pinouts page for that product:

"The ESP8266 requires 3.3V power voltage and peaks at 500mA or so of current for small periods of time. You'll want to assume the ESP8266 can draw up to 250mA so budget accordingly. To make it easier to power, we put a high-current-capable 3.3V voltage regulator on the board. It can take 3.4-16V and supply the current for the ESP8266.
There are two inputs for the regulator, V+ and VBat. Both have schottky diodes so you can connect both at different voltages and the regulator will simply power from the higher voltage. The V+ pin is also on the FTDI/serial header at the bottom edge.
We recommend connecting your LiPoly or AA battery pack directly to VBat and then keeping V+ unused for when an FTDI cable is attached"

So you can connect your external +5v supply to either VBAT or V+. And you can still connect or not connect the 5v from your usb console at the serial header.

Also i shouldn't have to say this but remember to connect the ground from your external supply to ground, and the ground from your usb console to ground too.

Thanks for the replies.

So if I understand corectly:



Is this correct:
- connect the external 5V power supply: Ground to GND and 5V to V+
- I could connect the red wire from the USB, but this would not be necessary if I use an external power supply.