Choosing a board
PropMesh runs on inexpensive ESP32 development boards. Every board below runs the same firmware features: the mesh, triggers, LED strips and fire, Bluetooth flood lights, and updates over the air. You can mix them in one show.
| Board | Status | Chip | PWM channels | LED strips | Battery | Pick it if… |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adafruit HUZZAH32 Feather | 🟡 Partly tested | ESP32-WROOM-32 | 16 | 8 | built in | the prop runs on a battery — it has a LiPo charger built in. |
| ESP32 DevKit V1 (30-pin) | ✅ Tested | ESP32-WROOM-32 | 16 | 8 | external | you want the easy default: cheap, everywhere, lots of pins. |
| ESP32-C3 SuperMini | 🧪 Not yet tried | ESP32-C3FH4 | 6 | 2 | external | you want the cheapest board that works, for a prop with a few outputs. |
| ESP32-C6 SuperMini | 🟡 Partly tested | ESP32-C6FH4 | 6 | 2 | external | you need it tiny, or a battery prop with a very low sleep current. |
Not sure? Get an ESP32 DevKit V1. It is the board everything is tested on first.
Status says how far each board has been tried. Tested boards run the project’s own yard. Partly tested boards work, with some features still waiting for a bench test. Not yet tried means the firmware builds but nobody has run it on that board yet, so if you have one, you would be the first.
One board in every show is the bridge. It stays plugged into your computer or on your WiFi and connects the console to all the others. Any board can be the bridge; it is a switch in the console.
Coming later: PropMesh’s own boards
Section titled “Coming later: PropMesh’s own boards”Dev boards on a breadboard work, and this year’s show runs on them, but they were never meant to live in a wet yard. Two purpose-built PropMesh boards are being designed, aiming for the 2027 season:
- PropMesh Pro: the big one, for a prop that does everything. It runs from a 12 to 30 V supply and has screw terminals for field wiring, sockets for stepper drivers, plenty of servo and LED outputs, relays, sound, and the level shifting and protection built in.
- PropMesh Mini: small and battery-powered, for a prop with no cable. It sleeps between shows, stores its own sounds, and fits inside the prop.
Both run the same firmware and console as the boards above, so a show you build now carries over. The designs are open (CERN-OHL-S) and live in the repository. The details will appear here once the first boards have been built and tested.
More boards are coming
Section titled “More boards are coming”This list will grow. Want a board that isn’t here? Request it on GitHub. Say which board and what you would use it for, and it helps decide what comes next. Comfortable describing its pins yourself? A board only needs a profile, a short file saying what each pin can do. See Contributing.