Which cheap and developmental ESP32 module to choose? Brief characteristics and opinions

I would like to familiarise myself with ESP32 chips.
I am familiar with other chips, but would still like to try to use a chip from this family as well.
Could you recommend an inexpensive module, it doesn't necessarily have to be some kind of complex platform, something cheap but still developable.
At the same time, I could use a brief overview of the circuits. I know I could have a look at the documentation of the chips, but such a short characteristic would help me to make a preliminary selection.
And user experience is always an invaluable help, what to look out for and what to avoid.

In my opinion, the best place to start is with the ESP32-S3. It has everything that the other chips in the ESP32 family have. Of course, many people start with a 'traditional' ESP32, but mainly because of the low cost. The cost ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 on ali is about 30 PLN (16MB FLASH 8MB PSRAM), in Poland about 50 PLN. This is the official Espressif module.

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>>21709989 .
The board looks quite interesting, but looking here https://done.land/components/microcontroller/families/esp/esp32/
it's an LX7 on there, and all the newer ones are already RISC-V.
So I'm not really convinced that this is a good choice to start with.
And how is the 3.3V power supply in them, do these boards have a power reserve, because recently in Chinese modules a few people complained that it died in STM32F411 when powering a small LCD screen.

gregor124 wrote:

that's the LX7 in there, and all the newer ones are already RISC-V.

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Both architectures are supported equally by Espressif. In addition, the official frameworks for C/C++ (ESP-IDF) and for Rust (esp-hal) are the same for the entire chip family. Of course, if one is only interested in RISC-V, then the best choice in my opinion would be the ESP32-C6 with support for Wi-Fi 6/BLE 5.3/802.15.4 (Thread/Zigbee) or the cheaper ESP32-C61 without Thread/Zigbee support.

The Espressif documentation repository is at the following link: https://documentation.espressif.com/en/home

For the ESP32-C6 the official module is ESP32-C6-DevKitC , for the ESP32-C61 it would be ESP32-C61-DevKitC .
Both modules are on sale, in different versions (C or M). Detailed documentation of the modules is at the link I provided above.

gregor124 wrote:

And how is the 3.3V supply in them, do these boards have a power supply

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The total current consumption should not exceed 0.5A (at continuous consumption). This is mainly due to the limited heat dissipation from the LDO in these modules. The module itself can draw 0.3A at 'peak', so there is little left for external circuitry.
This applies to basically all modules in the DevKitC series.

In the context of the ESP32 family of chips, the RISC-V cores are computationally weaker than the Xtensa cores (LX6/LX7), but have lower power consumption.

if you search for a breakout module with USB-C take this: Wemos D1 Mini ESP32


I like that because it has a small form factor and even though most of the important pins are broken out. A push button and GPIO controllable LED is available. You can supply the board with 5V (either via USB or directly). Low current devices can use the on board generated 3.3V directly.

otherwise if current in deep sleep is an issue use the castellated ESP-WROOM-32 directly. Current in deep sleep measured across 10k shunt: 6uA. Nice for battery operated devices as my: ESP32 based remote control or ESP32 WiFi display for inside and outside temperatures

all 'basic' features are available:
ESP-WROOM-32 datasheet

both variants available for about 5€ per piece. I've seen the D1 Mini for no more than 3€ in our favorite Chinese Warehouse