I’m not worried, that the esp is actively powering the USB oort due to an external power source, because I don’t use them. But is there a risk that the esp is sorting the power on the USB because of a mistake on my end by for example shorting 5v and Ground? Can it happen for any other reason? For example faulty parts on the esp?
It hasn’t happened yet but I am worried that it might happen in the future.
There’s a protection diode for reverse current on the esp and your computers usb has quite a bit of protection against this kind of stuff.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Even if there are errors in your cabling, it will very rarely break things if that is what you are asking. I catch myself all the time modifying things while it’s on which you aren’t really suppose to do.
Faulty parts will happen but you will either be able to physically see the bad solder or you will have broken it yourself and will have seen the smoke coming out (mostly when using an external power sources). I also know you can break individual pins with negative voltage which is harder to notice. ESD can happen as well and will be much more subtle, but there should be some protection on the board for that.
Its rare, but it’s always a good idea to have multiple esps, so you can so you can switch them out to verify it isn’t the chip.
i wouldn’t force it, but also wouldn’t worry too much. shorted an arduino nano once while hooked up to serial, it burned a schotky diode on the board which I’ve had to replace but the usb was fine