ESP32 Forum

I am using a D1 Mini [ ESP-8266-12F micro-USB port ] with a USB GPS ‘mouse’ plugged into the on-board USB port to create a small stand-alone GPS-over-Wi-Fi unit. Software is loaded to send the GPS serial data via Wi-Fi to an MQTT Broker for use with Node-Red.

5 volt power was applied to the D1 via the 5v and GND pins and I was hoping that the 5 volts would feed back to the USB connector to power the GPS unit which takes 85mA at 5 volts. However, it didn’t like it and the D1 failed!

Is the 5 volt pin on the main board connected directly to the 5v pin on the USB connector ?

Any guidance will be gratefully received

That's not going to work; that board has no way to be an USB host. It might be possible with an ESP32-S2 or ESP32-S3; those have an USB-OTG peripheral.

Thanks for that, I wasn't aware the USB port on the D1 was for power and programming only. My fault for not researching it properly!

I shall break out the GPS USB lines and assign the signals to the appropriate ports on the D1 and will power both devices conventionally.

Many thanks for your kind assistance!