ok so, suddenly i have no little amber light, no signal and the esp is getting super hot… ahhhh, super sad i think its fried…tried powering from usb and headers same thing the esp chip starts getting hot fast even with no load on it. can anyone reassure me of some super great fix… or its what i think and the things now useless. 
Hey @Vortexfractal - Yeah, unfortunately, it really sounds like something’s fried in the power circuitry.
This has happened to me before, usually when I miswired something or allowed something metal to short across the pins on the board.
I really hope you didn’t lose hours of pattern dev work. I try to use the “download backup archive” feature if I’ve put a lot of work into the patterns on a board.
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Hey @Vortexfractal - My count is at 4… Not proud, just trying to help you feel better #PBmurderclub
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that has made me laugh so yeah thanks. i do feel pretty gutted for the loss of the board. and that i have to order another for this project.
No problem, happy to help. Also a little context, I’ve purchased a lot of PB’s and I’m quite reckless with them. Putting them in sketchy outdoor enclosures for years (-40C to +40C), sub-par soldering skills, random power supplies, no anti-static anything… The PB blood is definitely on my hands.
Y’all might want to avail yourselves of the warranty.
In general we have a 1 year replacement policy for any product that fails due to a defect in the product. This does not cover cases were the products are damaged from misuse.
Due to the technical nature of the products, we may ask you to perform some troubleshooting steps before sending a replacement. We want you to get the most out of these products, and many problems can be fixed more quickly than a replacement.
So if you weren’t doing something that could damage it like “allowed metal to short across the pins” 
or running outside of its operating voltages/conditions, you might qualify for a warranty replacement.
Here’s some troubleshooting questions/info that might help narrow down the problem.
Where exactly is it getting warm? The ESP32 module itself (that is indeed a bad sign), or some of the components around it?
Do you have a multimeter, and if so, can you measure the 5V and 3.3V pad voltages?
Can you check for shorts, make sure there’s no metal fallen in and bridging some pins?
Any idea how much current it’s drawing?
If there is a power short, the voltage regulators will get very hot and start to thermally regulate so that they don’t damage themselves.
Accidentally feeding 5V to the esp32 module or pins can cause damage to the module.
The Standard’s power input can handle ± 18V without damage.
Most components on the board have built-in ESD protection around 2KV. I’ve only killed one PB with static, and that was with multiple, painful, 1" sparks, eventually the reverse polarity protection mosfet blew and was replaced with a small bit of wire (I didn’t need reverse polarity protection).
well that would be amazing, although i probably out of of the warranty period, the esp32 is getting super hot, voltages measured on are 5v and 3.2v
yeah thats what i thought that something shorting somewhere but theres nothing . current no idea but goes from cold to hot quite fast . Theres no obvious external short that i can tell. power was 5v from led side, not usb. fed from a step down transformer from 12v to 5v.
What else should i be checking for? the most frustrating thing is ive hardly used it, since purchase. and now the project it was destined for finally got finished ir ready for controller, then it dies. 
