ESP32-POE over temp shutdown

[mzeuner]

Hi everyone,

I am using a lot of ESP32-POE (non ISO) Boards. I have 2 examples where the board stopped working after a while. Power cycling brings it back again.
First example was mounted in a wall with insulation, and the problem stopped when I removed some insulation and made space for air circulation.

So I presume this issue is temperature related.

The second example is mounted in a small enclosure and here I drilled some holes in the enclosure to allow for air circulation but the problem wasn't solved entirely.

I didn't find a particular chip that gets extremely hot. The ESP32 itself is kinda warm, and the chips on the underside are warm as well, but nothing crazy.

I need help determining where I maybe should add a heatsink, or how this could be solved otherwise. Hoping to get some feedback


The boards are powered from a PoE Switch, and I use Ethernet and a few I/O pins. In the problematic case only a few hall sensors and a mosfet are attached, nothing that consumes a lot of power.

[LubOlimex]

It is the first report of this kind. We've managed to restart ESP32-POE but only when attempting to draw more current from it than safe and I am wondering about the power input and output. You mentioned that not a lot of current gets drawn but can you carefully measure if your setup exceed 3W for periperhals or 4W total wattage (including ESP32 chip). If the output is not very high, maybe the problem is in the input?

Of course, if you have some space, some aluminum heatsinks are always welcome.

[mzeuner]

Thanks for the reply. I can't measure right now, but it seems improved ventilation has fixed the issues, so for now I'm good.
When I have some time I will try to make a test setup to find out more details!