Hi,
Just wanted to give a quick heads-up for people, that have problems powering stuff via the 5v pin on cheap knockoff ESP32-S3 boards.
Took me a while to figure out, but you have to bridge the little pads just above pin 11 and 12. Caveat: Doing so disables the USB connector (the bottom one).
Likewise; you have to bridge the pads above the RGB LED if you want to enable that.
Thank you for this!
The 2 pad beside RGB if connected will enable the onboard LED to be active(The white square).On my board they are connected at the factory and this use GPIO48. The IN-OUT over the pin 10-11 if connected will enable 5V output but my board doesn’t have any mention of 5V out. If you connect the IN-OUT together ,do not connect a 5V in with a USB-C in the same time,this will damage the board beyond repair.
that has saved my entire project, thank you!!!!
I created an account just to say thank you! You saved me from a huge trouble!
So, if you connect the in-out pad then you use the Vin pin to power the board and forget the type-c forever?
And if you connect the rgb pad only then the led is active and useful?
No dude… These boards are made to input 5v and 3.3v and output only 3.3v. These boards are not designed to be powering 5v devices off of them and doing so without carefully verifying how many mAh you’re pulling on that 5v then you will certainly fry that board and destroy it over something so ridiculous.
If you just simply make an effort to go read through the documentation for this board then it will explain to you that the manufacturer disconnected the 5v output capability to prevent a never ending wave of users from smoking them just like they’ve done for years and years… They also give you instructions on what solder pads need a solder beidge added to connect them and it will then enable the 5v output to use at your own risk!! It’s all so very easily found in the documentation that you should have already read but, there’s an even easier way and thats to just use a Google Search like every other critical thinking person does…
No one here is telling you some new information that they discovered and nobody else knows this incredible breaking news. You and the OP would know this by looking at the docs and it shouldn’t have ever been an exciting discovery because it’s not.
You’re gonna be having huge trouble if you don’t be very careful using that 5v output and keep track of how much of your very limited mAh available to use are being used or else the only thing you’ll have accomplished here is converting an esp32 into a fire starter.
I agree these boards are designed for 5v IN, and if powered from USB some can provide a limited amount of 5V OUT - depends on the board.
That kind of assumes that the seller on AliX or wherever has attached the correct documentation, or even any documentation. That is not my experience.
They are based on the first generation of Espressif’s Development Boards but probably manufactured independently. While Espressif’s documentation is useful, it seems unreasonable to just assume that all the copies are identical to Espressif’s version.
With AliX you pays your money and takes your chances. When the price is low I can afford to take a bigger risk.
Who needs documentation when you have this wonderful community forum with so many people willing to help except some that they tell you ‘go read documentation’. Oh well!
Thank you all anyways 
I have many dozens of boards working and more on the bench and they are all different in some way.
The multimeter/oscilloscope is my best friend sitting right next to my smart PSU and soldering station.
So, my advice, measure ten times, solder once!
Depending on your skills and solder might be good idea to measure 11th time after soldering.. 
depends on the board.
Yea, that’s why i keep saying that the documentation needs to be read so people can actually find out definitively.
That kind of assumes that the seller on AliX or wherever has attached the correct documentation, or even any documentation. That is not my experience.
No assumptions are necessary and I shouldn’t even have to say this but, if you’re routinely buying MCU’S from a vendor that either don’t have documentation included or what is included is the wrong documentation then that’s 100% on you and whoever else ignores those red flags and makes the purchase from them solely based on the price and wanting to save $0.50 cents by using a shady communist supporting website…
You have absolutely no obligation to trust or use the documentation provided by the vendor whenever they actually provide it! You can literally read the information printed on the board and use that to pull up the documentation from the manufacturer website or wherever you want, no assumptions needed and absolutely no confusion included either…
