ESP32 Forum

I have designed a custom board using esp32-c3fh4 but I'm unable to program the controller. Tried both method (Uisng usb, and uart) but nothing worked. Not sure how to debug. Help would be appreciated.

Assuming you haven't tried anything to debug this (because otherwise you would have mentioned it, right? right?) here's the basics:

- Does the ESP32-C3 get power at all? Check your rails.
- Does the ESP32-C3 get taken out of reset? Check the EN pin.
- Does the ESP32-C3 get a clock signal? Use a scope to see if the 40MHz clock is oscillating.
- Do you get any sign of life on U0TXD? Normally you should at least see a signon message there.

In general, your schematic is not optimal, by the way: even if you get this working, you may have issues with reception because you haven't decoupled the power supply properly. Also, you probably want to remove C2. In general, I'd suggest you give the hardware design guidelines for that chip a good read-through, it may mention other issues.

Thanks for the reply.

- Does the ESP32-C3 get power at all? Check your rails.
Yes, I'm receiving the power; 3.3V on all VCC pins

- Does the ESP32-C3 get taken out of reset? Check the EN pin.
Yes. When I power up the system with USB plugged in and with pressed reset button; I can hear the usb plug in sound when I release the reset button, so I think the controller seems to be getting the reset.

- Does the ESP32-C3 get a clock signal? Use a scope to see if the 40MHz clock is oscillating.
Don't have any scope. I'll try to find one and check.

- Do you get any sign of life on U0TXD? Normally you should at least see a signon message there.
No, nothing on UART TXD.

I'll try to remove the C2 and update. Decoupling capacitors are added in the bottom left of the schematic image.