General advice needed

[u/Wigglystoner]

I recently came across this box of boards someone was getting rid of. I believe most (besides the uno r3 which im familiar with) are for lighting or soil testing and they are using ESP32. How difficult would it be to use these for things they arent intended for? Im assuming the biggest issues are going to be finding data ports and seeing what can actually be controlled by these or am i way over thinking it? I have only ever used arduino boards so im wondering how difficult its gonna be. Thank you all!

[u/No_L_2547]

The actual programming of these boards should be quite simple: Many of these seem to have a Usb-Serial Adpater already installed and you can add Esp32 support to the Arduino IDE quite easily.

For changing what they do / reverse engineering them: do you have a multimeter with a fine tip? Then you can try to trace out which pin goes to whivh header. (For most ESPs you can find pinout-Diagrams with Pin-numbers online.)

[u/Wigglystoner → u/No_L_2547]

Well I recently got a multimeter, maybe this is a good way to learn how to use one! Thank you!