ESP32 module / dev board selection

[Humming4Bird]

Hello,

there seems to be a large number of different ESP32 modules available. There are are web sites that show some specs for modules like here:
https://www.espressif.com/en/products/modules

Still, I'm not sure which one I could use for my project to stream internet radio. My requirements are as follows:

• dual core

• PSRAM to buffer the data stream

• DAC and I2S support for audio ouput options

• external antenna (IPEX connector) for good Wifi signal

• supported by Arduino IDE

The ESP32 Wrover seems to fit these requirements. However I could not find affordable (i.e. cheap ) development boards. Some vendors offer outdated hardware like the Wrover B.
I've found one board that seems to meet these requirements which is the ESP32 cam board. It has an ESP32-S which I'm not sure about the dual core and the Arduino support. But it has an external antenna an PSRAM at least. However the module pins for DAC and I2C are not available on the pin header but are routed only to the camera connector (flex cable). If possible at all I'd rather not start soldering on the board.

I'm quite confused and hope for some help in selecting a well suited development board for my project.

Thank you very much!

Cheers
Markus

[ESP_Minatel]

Hi!

I think the dev kit you need is the ESP32-DevKitCVIE and you can buy here.

Screenshot from 2022-03-25 08-19-46.png (24.96 KiB) Viewed 2566 times

[Humming4Bird]

Thank you very much for this suggestion. This module looks quite promising indeed.

However it is not available on ebay as far as I can tell.

Would the ESP32 cam board work as well? To access the pins needed for DAC and I2S I would ask a friend to solder some wires to the board.

But would the ESP32 cam module have a dual core processor?

[ESP_Minatel]

I'm not sure about the ESP-CAM, it's a third-party board and I just have the ESP-EYE (similar to ESP-CAM).

As the ESP-CAM pin layout, you don't have access to DAC pins (GPIO25 and GPIO26) and it seems to be used on the camera (TWI_CLK, TWI_SDA). I2S you can use on the available pins.
With a bit of hacking, you can remove the camera and solder some wires on the pins.