design error in the board? whats not working?

@sak There is some really weird problem where the esp32 randomly looses power and shuts down but its literally random even when nothing else is connected to the board, I had a temporary fix where i bridged the power straight to the vin pin then vin to the fans 5v pad, but then the pad broke for the fan 5v and now it doesn’t turn on again, even when i provide the same 5v to that rail. From my tests it doesn’t appear to be bridged pins or a short anywhere, even when i put my esp32 on a bread board and just took only the 5v and ground from the pcb right at the source when connected to the board it still failed until i disconnected completely off the pcb. Sorry if that’s not a very clear explanation but if you have any ideas or need clarification im all ears.

From all the tests it seems to be pointing to a design flaw somewhere

i think you mightve fried your board. Test if it works by itself and powered via usbc then via vin pin (5v only). Its often inadvisable to power motors directly from the esp32 as they have large current spikes especially when under load. Your fan likely worked for a bit until it had a current spike and drew wayy to much current from your esp32. What i would recommend is adding usbc to your pcb itself then route the vbus from there to vin and a seperate not connected trace to your motor or module you use for pwm, also make sure you have decoupling capacitors. They act as tiny stores of energy that the motor can use if it requires more. Also the reason it randomly looses power is likely because of its own overcurrent protection. Hope this helps and goodluck man. (also im not an expert lol so obv idk 100%)

another thing is trace width, power and gnd traces must be thicker (i usually do .5mm for power and a gnd pour but theres probably better stuff if you look online). It’s difficult to troubleshoot without seeing your board or layout, but this is what I think is causing the issue.

@sak Thank you for the response, I have my main power rails on .5mm and the signal traces at .25, I have tested it without any added parts to the board (Fan, Leds, Screen, Temp sensor, etc.) And the issue still persists, i even took the esp32 out and put it on a breadboard and then soldered a jumper to the power rail of my pcb and put it into the breadboard and the issue still persisted until i completely removed the usb c connector off the board and put it directly into the breadboard. Power supply shows no shorts either. And i have tested 3 different PCB’s and 3 different esp32’s. And the parts on the board and the esp32 function just fine but once it hits the board it doesn’t work. That’s why i assume a design flaw.

Yeah that sounds like something wrong with the design, I still would reccomened powering the motor separately instead of directly from the esp32

@sak Yeah the motor is pulling off of a 5v line, That rail splits off to power the fan and the esp32 its not through the pins on the esp32. Thank you for your help though hopefully my next revision gets it working correctly.

np man gl