For those struggling to get ESP32 CAM (Clone AI Thinker module) working

Hardware
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After ordering 2 (clone) AI Thinker ESP32 CAM modules, I got one of them running a week ago using ESPHOME. But after almost a week this module stopped working telling me it could not find the camera module anymore. Replacing the camera module did not solve this. Flashing the other module with the same image did not work either. So I had two modules now both not working.

Today i found out that these modules have very bad soldering of the ESP32 module near the connector pins. It looks like they soldered on the pins first before soldering the ESP32. As the ESP32 heats up, these connections get unreliable.

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After resoldering these connections, both camera’s are working again with ESPHOME.

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This seems to be an issue on mines too.
I removed the black plastic headers first, you can do that with a razor blade remove the plastic part first so you can leave the pins soldered individually, then you can easily remove one pin at a time, you just need to remove 4 pins close to the ESP32 on each side then you can easily reflow/add more solder to the pins.

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Hi would you mind sharing the code snippet to make this work with ESPHOME @Sweetpants , @glmnet

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Thank you so much for this post! I have been struggling with this camera for days now and would always see the ESP_ERR_NOT_SUPPORTED errorr.

I used my hot air solder station to heat up the parts described above and afterwards it would start immediately.

Here is the working config:

psram:
  mode: quad
  speed: 40MHz 

i2c:
  - id: camera_i2c
    sda: GPIO26
    scl: GPIO27

esp32_camera:
  external_clock:
    pin: GPIO0
    frequency: 20MHz
  i2c_id: camera_i2c
  data_pins: [GPIO5, GPIO18, GPIO19, GPIO21, GPIO36, GPIO39, GPIO34, GPIO35]
  vsync_pin: GPIO25
  href_pin: GPIO23
  pixel_clock_pin: GPIO22
  power_down_pin: GPIO32

  # Image Settings
  name: My Camera
  resolution: 1280x1024
  max_framerate: 10 fps
  jpeg_quality: 30
  brightness: 1