Assembly¶

No soldering skills needed. The PCM5102A plugs directly onto the ESP32 pins through a female header — no breadboard, no jumper wires.

Step 1 — Prepare the ESP32¶

The pins on one side of the ESP32 need to be removed, or simply not soldered on, so the assembly fits inside the 3D-printed case. Only the side carrying GPIO11–GPIO14 needs pins.

If your board arrived with pins already soldered on both sides, carefully desolder or clip the pins on the opposite side.

Step 2 — Plug the DAC onto the ESP32¶

Take a female 2.54 mm pin header (6 pins) and push it onto the ESP32 pins on the GPIO11–14 side. Then insert the PCM5102A into the female header from the other side.

The connections made through the header are:

flowchart LR
    subgraph esp["ESP32-S3"]
        direction TB
        P5["5V"]
        P11["GPIO11"]
        P12["GPIO12"]
        P13["GPIO13"]
        P14["GPIO14"]
    end

    subgraph dac["PCM5102A"]
        direction TB
        VIN["VIN"]
        BCK["BCK"]
        DIN["DIN"]
        LCK["LCK"]
        GND["GND"]
    end

    P5 ---|power| VIN
    P11 ---|bit clock| BCK
    P12 ---|audio data| DIN
    P13 ---|L/R select| LCK
    P14 ---|software ground| GND

ESP32-S3 pin	PCM5102A pin	Function
5V	VIN	Power for the DAC
GPIO11	BCK	Bit clock (audio timing)
GPIO12	DIN	Audio data
GPIO13	LCK	Left/right channel select
GPIO14	GND	Software ground, pulled low by the firmware
GND	GND	Ground — optional, the GPIO14 software ground is sufficient

Bridge VIN/VOUT on the ESP32-S3

On the ESP32-S3 board, bridge the VIN/VOUT solder pads if they are not already connected. This lets the board take 5 V power directly. Without it the DAC will not be powered.

Step 3 — Check the result¶

Your assembly should look like this:

Front view of the assembled ESP32 and PCM5102A — Front

Back view of the assembled ESP32 and PCM5102A — Back

Side view of the assembled ESP32 and PCM5102A — Side

The PCM5102A sits on top of the ESP32 with the 3.5 mm audio jack sticking out the end. Plug a USB-C cable into the ESP32 for power.

Step 4 — Print the case (optional)¶

A 3D-printable case is provided: boite-esp32.stl. Print it with standard PLA settings. The case is designed for an assembly with pins on one side only, as described in step 1.

Next¶

Head to Flash the firmware.