11/25/2025 - Figured out board requirements and most of needed parts.

I figured out the general requirements I want for this board and started looking into parts that could fulfill all of my wants.
I really want power over Ethernet available for this board and that is making things much more complicated. I've been looking over a bunch of datasheets trying to figure out something I can use. I think I have the main parts down and I just need to figure out the support components like resistors or capacitors for each one.

After this I still need to figure out how to wire up the new ESP32 board..

Current project goals:

Current Projects parts list:

11/28/2025 6:48 PM - Finished schematic for Ethernet specific components

On the 26th I finished up all the Ethernet specific components for my PCB. Trying to add Ethernet and Power Over Ethernet is really making this project a lot harder than I intended for it to be :P

This process was made significantly harder by the fact that I have been on a trip and only had access to the footprints and datasheets I had downloaded the day earlier.

Heres what that schematic looks like now:

11/28/2025 6:52 PM - Finished schematic for ESP32 specific components

On the 27th I worked on all the ESP32 specific stuff I needed for the board. The main difference between this one and my last board is that because I needed Ethernet support, the ESP32 I selected did not have built in USB support.

The USB stuff wasn't nearly as hard to figure out as the Ethernet, heres what the schematic looks like now:

11/28/2025 6:58 PM - Finished schematic for board power and IO

In the long ol car ride home I finished laying out the schematic for the other power components as well as the relay system I would use.

Again the main hardship during this session was the lack of internet connection. I was only able to use the one schematic of a relay I had downloaded prior to the trip.

11/29/2025 - Layout and most of the routing

During the lock in call I created a layout which fits entirely inside a 100x100 square.

Heres what that looks like:

The routing got pretty interesting and its the first time I had to manually tune track distances.

Heres what all the routing looked like at the end of the night:

(There are still 30ish things not connected atp)

12/5/2025 6 PM - Rerouted the PCB

The wiring is much better organized now. It did take quite a while though...

I moved the components closer to what they actually connect to in order to reduce cross board connections.
(to do this I had to redo some of the length tuned wires :pf:)

The wiring is also so much more pretty now.

Heres what the board looks like now:

The wiring:

and now every single component is connected with no DRC errors!

12/5/2025 8 PM - Cleaned up Silkscreen and added Art!

Heres what the board looks like now:

I changed every single piece of text into comic sans lol.
I also added my usual set of PCB artwork to the back!

Heres what that looks like:

Heres what the PCB editor looks like now:

12/13/2025 - Finished up the Renders, README, BOM and Firmware.

(Banner image)
Alright its now time to finish up this project and get it ready to ship.

Heres what the renders look like:

The BOM also got pretty long :p

(This isn't all of it)

Adding Ethernet + POE to this board was a lot more complicated then I intended for it lol. I actually naively intended to make this in a couple days...

At this point I also made the main firmware for the board, where it can connect to the Google Home controller and publish its commands automatically.