Summary
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The F32 is a fingernail-sized ESP32 development board that mounts to a USB-C connector.
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Uses tiny components 01005: Soldering requires magnification, fine tweezers, and steady hands.
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BOM/open source code available, but the board “intentionally ignores many standard design guidelines.”
Usually when I share an ESP32 project, I like to emphasize that it’s something you can do at home too. Looking at projects is cool, but recreating one in your home lab is even cooler. However, sometimes while a project is underway in theory reproducible at home, I’m not 100% sure I can recommend it doing he.
Still, if you’re feeling brave, you can create this amazing ESP32 development board at home. It’s about the size of a fingernail and designed to fit into a USB-C connector. And, according to its own creator, it’s complicated to make and probably shouldn’t work in the first place.
The F32 is the smallest ESP32 board you’ll see today
And (maybe) you can make your own at home.
On the ESP32 subreddit, user Pegor uploaded photos of his most recent project. It’s called F32 and it’s an open source hardware project using 01005 components. These are tiny parts that require some really good tweezers, a fine soldering iron, and a jeweler’s loupe or digital microscope to work with them properly.
Fortunately, Pegor had the patience to solder everything together, and once the board was built, they were able to connect to the chip via an access point and control elements like an LED and the Wi-Fi connectivity module from a web app. I’m not entirely sure why anyone would need something so small, but it’s there if anyone needs it.
You can read the bill of materials, instructions and source code at the GitHub page F32and yes, you can technically do this at home. However, it’s worth noting that Pegor claims that the F32 “intentionally ignores many standard design guidelines” and can be tricky to get up and running. As they state:
Whichever use you choose, keep in mind that this design intentionally ignores several critical components, such as proper decoupling capacitors, an antenna matching circuit, USB termination resistors, and probably more. It works, but is intentionally empty.
Still, I’m sure getting the F32 to work would be a monumental project for anyone, if not incredibly complicated.
