I think I bricked my ESP32 D1 Mini

Issues
1

First off… I am a Noob. This is my first WLED project. I had successfully wired (without a protoboard, just a birds nest of header wires) an ESP32 D1 Mini, into a logic level shifter with an analog mic into a set of SK6812. Everything was working great, but it was a gangly mess.

I am making up a new protoboard with a D1 mini for WLED SR. For what it’s worth… I absolutely hate working with stacked pins.

Anyway… I soldered up my board and all was working well. WLED SR was installed on the ESP32 and working. I pulled the ESP off of my headers to add in another set of wiring for the analog mic and when I went to put it back on I accidently put the board into the headers I had soldered off one pin off.

Now when I power it up I get the solid red LED on the board but nothing works. I went back to the web install page and I cant get it to open the logs or the console. I also tried re-installing and it doesn’t work. I am unaware of a Boot button on the D1 Mini. Did I brick this thing or is there any way I can reset it?

Thanks for any and all guidance.

2

Possible you blew up the onboard voltage reg and/or your ESP32 chip.
If you turn off all power (and leave it off) and re-simulate how you did your “bad plugin” you can analyze what happened to GND, 5V and 3.3V. Mis-wiring on those are usually what cause a catastrophic failure.

3

It is not possible to brick any ESP MCU as long as the flash chip is working.

4

Hold my beer…

5

I know it’s been a year, so you probably have moved on from this, but I found myself in a similar situation. I flashed my ESP32 D1 Mini with WLED, then wired up all up with one strip and a mic. After that it would turn on and I could log into it etc, but it wouldn’t let me flash it again. Once I removed every wire from it, it allowed me to flash it again.