Re-design board

For my tangible interface project (see w8 page), I wanted to make a small esp32 board. The one I made last week (see week 9) was HUGE, plus we did not have all the components so ended up being useless. This week I was SURE I could figure out how to make an esp32 successfully, starting with redesigning the schematic to be more simple and compact:

Milling went ok this time (compared to last week) except, for some reason, the traces were much thinner than usual. This, led to many paths peeling off over the course of soldering, etc, and so I needed to add a LOT of jumper wires (or whatever they are called). Asking someone in the room, I was advised to use the wire shown in the image below. No matter what I tried, it didn't stick with solder--It was as if it repelled solder! Finally, Rob (my hero) came in and informed me that it was most def the wrong wire, and the one I was using was a high-resistance type that did not solder well. Once I switched to the correct type, thing went much more smoothly

Twelve successful jumper wires and many hours later, I had my board. Obviously it was a pretty sketchy setup, but after so many failures and a busy milling machine, this was my one shot! I just hoped it would work...

Things weren't looking good when I plugged the board in and the LED didn't light up. Sure enough, even after trying many methods of pressing the restart button and different ports, etc. the board was not recognised.

Using the multimeter, it seemed there were several spots the current wasn't flowing, but I could not see why not. I sent a picture of my board to the group and asked if anyone had ideas as to why it wasn't, but honestly it's probably just because the paths are too small. Knowing it takes me 3+ hours to solder a board and it being well past midnight, and due to the long line for the milling machine, I decided to call it, yet again, and try after class.