Today the ESP32 arrived, and I was surprised by how small it was! I was both pleasantly surprised by the small form factor, as well as horrified of what soldering I had ahead of me...

The ESP32 has 38 pads surrounding it, on 3 sides. It is far from breadboard friendly!

To make it more breadboard compatible, I created this breakout board:

It breaks out all 37 (One is NC) pads into a breadboard friendly format. The breakout sits nicely on a breadboard, and the top header can be used with female to male jumper cables.

This was by far the most fiddly bit of making I have done in a long time! I started by hot gluing the ESP32 to the centre of the board, then, with the headers seated in a breadboard I began the painful process of connecting each pad to it's corresponding pin.

Whilst it's not the neatest thing in the world, it works. Each pad is connected to a pin that plugs into a breadboard.