Since the last post there has been content for at least two updates. In fact, I'm so certain of this that I was shocked to see there was only one log post. And that that in it's self was so short I'll just go ahead and quote it in it's entirety right here.

Boards ordered, should have next week. Pretty sure I've got all the parts.

That is all.

Weeeellll turns out while I did have parts I didn't have enough. Of course with only 2 CP2102N's left on hand, I exercised zero extra caution, immediately frying one of them.

For my next trick I lifted pads of the USB connector on one of the other boards.

This left me with a single pristine board, and without hot air on hand, zero USB chips.

Frustrated I just ordered more. Except I ordered QFN20, instead of QFN24. Yyyyyyaaaaaaaay. I didn't want to put in another small order with a large one coming up, I thought this project might get shelved for a bit.

On to the good part.

I've been working on modding a pair of reflow ovens at a near by hardware oriented co-working space, Circuit Launch and needed some test boards. And with hot air available.... why not try to recover that one not yet shorted CP2102...

Not only did I manage to get it off, the reflow worked quite well despite the vintage paste I was using.

I didn't have any ESP boards with all the needed pins available on hand but did manage a quick serial port test.

And as you might have noticed from the picture above, I have to get creative with the... *ahem* "Are these 1206 cap?"
I'm not even certain they're fully connected. But once I did manage a full ESP32 test several things where noticed. First, it
worked! Very pleased with that. But it was really inconsistent. I was seeing a lot of long waits and frequent failures while flashing.

Putting properly fitting caps helped this situation but I do still see long waits.

The other thing that didn't work brings up one of the reasons I really like the CP2102N. These have a programmable Serial ID. This is really handy for keeping track of various devices that might not be in sight or tracking which firmware is currently flashed. Problem is, it wouldn't work!

If anyone could shed some inside into either the inconsistencies or why I cannot change that serial ID please leave a comment. So far I'm pleased with the project and plan to do a second iteration soon. Lack of indicator LEDs is bugging me and I might add a physical reset button.