[HN Gopher] Show HN: F32 - An Extremely Small ESP32 Board
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       Show HN: F32 - An Extremely Small ESP32 Board
        
       As part of a little research and also some fun I decided to try my
       hand at seeing how small of an ESP32 board I can make with
       functioning WiFi.
        
       Author : pegor
       Score  : 158 points
       Date   : 2025-11-19 20:09 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | tmpfs wrote:
       | This is a very cool experiment, even if the board doesn't end up
       | being that practical (the antenna hack is going to be an ongoing
       | issue I think) your documentation looks great at a glance!
        
         | pegor wrote:
         | Thank you! I agree, antenna definitely needs some improvement.
        
       | anyg wrote:
       | If it is a little bigger to incorporate a bigger chip antenna and
       | some GPIO pins, it is going to be very useful for a lot of IoT
       | projects!!
        
         | pegor wrote:
         | Definitely would be more functional with more of the GPIOs
         | exposed.
        
           | forsalebypwner wrote:
           | If you want an ESP32 dev board with GPIOs exposed there are
           | dozens (or hundreds, maybe thousands) of other options out
           | there. It makes sense not to expose them when you're going
           | for the smallest possible footprint.
        
         | PunchyHamster wrote:
         | there is plenty of those already and not all too hard to make
         | yourself, see LilyGo T01-C3
         | 
         | Its of format of original ESP8 so you get serial + 3 IO pins
        
         | margalabargala wrote:
         | The XIAO series of ESP32s is exactly that.
         | 
         | They are 4x the size though, almost exactly double in both
         | length and width.
         | 
         | https://wiki.seeedstudio.com/XIAO_ESP32C3_Getting_Started/
        
       | NuclearPM wrote:
       | > This can be seen in my highly necessary depiction below.
       | 
       | I love this. Fun and insightful article. Thank you.
        
         | pegor wrote:
         | Thanks for checking it out!
        
       | ingen0s wrote:
       | Nice work, kudos!
        
       | jacquesm wrote:
       | If you add another GPIO and make a silicone mold you could make
       | an in-cable eavesdropper on USB connections that streams out the
       | data via the wifi. That would be a pretty scary tool in the right
       | circumstances.
        
         | atemerev wrote:
         | These cables can be bought for like $200 mostly legally.
        
       | Gys wrote:
       | > PCBWay does also offer assembly services
       | 
       | Seriously? For a tiny board like this also? Genuine question.
        
         | kube-system wrote:
         | yes, but they use a machine, they don't do it by hand.
        
       | puzzlingcaptcha wrote:
       | 01005? Oh no no no. I can barely do 0402s by hand and those are
       | _2.5x_ larger.
        
         | VTimofeenko wrote:
         | FWIW, there's a step by step soldering guide in the readme:
         | 
         | https://github.com/PegorK/f32#building-the-f32
         | 
         | It looks doable, but of course a lot of carefulling is required
         | when placing the components.
        
         | sho_hn wrote:
         | With one of those mini-hotplates for reflow soldering and a LCD
         | microscope it's still fairly doable.
        
       | Rebelgecko wrote:
       | Really cool. I just ran into a situation where it would be handy
       | to have a small Bluetooth device that plugs into USB-C. However
       | soldering something like this seems a bit beyond me, is there a
       | more turnkey solution?
        
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       (page generated 2025-11-20 23:00 UTC)