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  • Author Author: camuyano
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Fail of the week with ESP8266 Cheap Wifi

camuyano

A little more than a month ago a friend told me about a cheap wifi module. So I searched for this piece of wifi magic and founded the ESP8266 Wifi module. And it is really cheap. Depending on where you get it and the version we can say is between $5 and $8 for one module. Told myself I can spare $8 for this Wifi promise land so I ordered two for a little more than $8.

Yesterday I got them, right away I got very exited!! On yes, new toy!

First I realized that I ordered the ESP8266 ESP-03 model. Seems to be one of the favorites (from the forums) because it has several exposed digital IOs. But .... (there is always a but) it has no pin headers, so I said, no problem I solder a few and get done with it. Pin space separation is not the same as my pin headers. I then move to plan B (or C, hard to keep track when you are exited to get this working). Anyhow, the idea was to place it on a perf board and solder small wires to the position of some pin headers so I can wire this up.

I did manage to hook up some wires then the moment came. I got the usb to serial, connected to the device, opened the terminal window and.... and..... nothing! Nothing at all.

As of now I do not know if I damaged the device or the soldering is not good enough or even if I am totally wiring it incorrectly. For that I air my frustration here while I manage to get a lease from sleeping time to continue working on this.

It may be nothing, but this board has the antenna upside down. Comparing it to the other, and to others in the web. It might be nothing.

image

What is my future plan:

I got two of this, in the new un-touched one I will be more carefull.

1. Only wire the needed pins to avoid overheating the thing.

2. Hook everything through a level shifter to make sure I am on the safe side of the 3.3V

3. Pray

4. See what happens

 

Also there is one of the other versions in the way so I will try with other versions. I am sure this will be sorted out, and I will be able to use this for the Christmas decorations. But if someone is using one of these modules, or just have any comment, please do.

I will update with progress about this for others to benefit, there are not that many youtube videos about this device. However it seems to be working for a lot of folks.

 

I don't easily give up. Hope tonight I have the time to make this work.

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  • Update:

    I manage to get some data on the terminal window but not much. Still all a fail. I soldered a second module, and wire it up using a voltage divider circuit to protect the module. However I found no good results.

    Reading on the chip documentation, there is a chip enable. I am pulling it up high, however it makes no difference. Only thing I get is gibberish when plugin the module.

    Anything I send to the module I get nothing. I am not giving up and soon I should get other versions of the module to keep on trying.

    I have tried as many serial baud rates as I can. Also changed the bits size, parity and what not. Also tried with several power sources. On the web it says this module is power hungry. I do not have much options for power sources for now. Might need to build me a 3.3V power supply that has plenty of power.

    All tests were done with the same laptop on Linux Mint and Windows 7. Tried several serial software including the Arduino serial monitoring.

    Tried with a usb to serial TTL as well as with an Arduino Uno board.

    Also tried to connect from the native serial port of the Raspberry pi (since it is 3.3V) but nothing.

     

    All feels like I am sending data to an incorrect pin. There is limited documentation on these boards but should be more than enough to make it work. This battle is in a difficult place, but the war is far from finish. I will continue hacking on this until it works. But if I get a different version working before this one, this may be postponed until I get more ideas. This specific model will look very nice into a custom board, because it is very small but first I need to work with it on the bread board. I will love to get this working and soon it will be.

     

    This is a picture of the only thing I am seeing (exactly the same with two boards).

    image

    I am doing something wrong here, but do not know what. Hope to find out, if this happen to anyone else drop a line on what got it working.

Comment

  • Update:

    I manage to get some data on the terminal window but not much. Still all a fail. I soldered a second module, and wire it up using a voltage divider circuit to protect the module. However I found no good results.

    Reading on the chip documentation, there is a chip enable. I am pulling it up high, however it makes no difference. Only thing I get is gibberish when plugin the module.

    Anything I send to the module I get nothing. I am not giving up and soon I should get other versions of the module to keep on trying.

    I have tried as many serial baud rates as I can. Also changed the bits size, parity and what not. Also tried with several power sources. On the web it says this module is power hungry. I do not have much options for power sources for now. Might need to build me a 3.3V power supply that has plenty of power.

    All tests were done with the same laptop on Linux Mint and Windows 7. Tried several serial software including the Arduino serial monitoring.

    Tried with a usb to serial TTL as well as with an Arduino Uno board.

    Also tried to connect from the native serial port of the Raspberry pi (since it is 3.3V) but nothing.

     

    All feels like I am sending data to an incorrect pin. There is limited documentation on these boards but should be more than enough to make it work. This battle is in a difficult place, but the war is far from finish. I will continue hacking on this until it works. But if I get a different version working before this one, this may be postponed until I get more ideas. This specific model will look very nice into a custom board, because it is very small but first I need to work with it on the bread board. I will love to get this working and soon it will be.

     

    This is a picture of the only thing I am seeing (exactly the same with two boards).

    image

    I am doing something wrong here, but do not know what. Hope to find out, if this happen to anyone else drop a line on what got it working.

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