Introduction: Breadboard Friendly Breakout Board for ESP8266-01 With Voltage Regulator

Hello everyone! hope you are well. In this tutorial I will be showing how I made this customized breadboard friendly adapter for ESP8266-01 module with proper voltage regulation and features that enable the flash mode of the ESP.I have made this module particularly to enable microcontrollers internet functionality using this module, thus I did not create the breakout pins for GPIO pins. This module comes in handy when trying to make an IoT project or update firmware on the ESP board. You can easily power this with 5V without worrying about destroying your ESP board as it already contains a voltage regulator. Filter capacitors are also added in order to stabilize the power input to the ESP. So let us proceed to make this adapter.

Supplies:

1. ESP8266-01 module
2. Perfboard/Veroboard
3. 1K, 2.2K resistors
4. AMS1117 3.3v regulator
5. Male berg strip
6. Female berg strip
7. Capacitors: 47uF and 0.1uF
8. Some connecting wires
9. Soldering Iron and kits

Step 1: Gathering All the Required Parts

The parts needed to make the adapter has been mentioned in the previous step.

Initially we cut the perfboard according to our size requirements and determine the position of the components.It is advisable to cut the perfboard slightly bigger so that we can have some margin of error when soldering or completing connections.

Step 2: Soldering the Components..

After finalizing the placements of the components, we finally start the soldering process. Instead of directly soldering the ESP module on the board I first soldered the female berg strip connectors so that the ESP module can also be removed if needed. Having this feature allows us to change the ESP module as per our wish and we are not limited to using only one ESP board. It's more of a modular design. The filter capacitor fits just below the ESP module.

Step 3: Adding the Voltage Divider Network

Why do we need the voltage divider network you ask?

The reason being that ESP8266 module operates on 3.3 volts and 5 volts (which is typically the nominal voltage used my most microcontrollers like Arduino) can damage the IC. The WiFi module and Arduino microcontroller communicates using the serial communication that uses the Tx and Rx data lines. The Tx data line from the Arduino works at 5 volt logic level whereas the ESP board is a 3.3 v system. This can damage the ESP board so we use a voltage divider network made from 2.2K and 1K resistor for the Rx pin of ESP8266 to bring the voltage down to about 3.6 volts (which is slightly higher than 3.3v but still acceptable). The arduino is easily compatible with 3.3v logic so the Tx pin of ESP and Rx pin of Arduino can be directly connected.

The above images show the position of the voltage divider network on the breakout board

Step 4: Completing the Soldering Process

After soldering all the components in place this is what the board looks like.Yes, one or two connections are not upto the mark, that is because I made some mistake in component position. Component placement on the perfboard should be given a good thought before proceeding with the soldering process specially when the board is having a small form factor. Anyways, my breakout board is ready and works perfectly :)

Step 5: Circuit Diagram and Final Look

I have attached the circuit diagram for this breakout board. Feel free to expand the board and add further pins as per your application. I hope you like this project! Feel free to share your feedback and queries in the comments. Have a great day :)

Thanks PCBWay for your SUPPORT 🤘