The use of the ESP8266 in the world of IoT

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By MrFex
#52053 Hello friends,


This is my first ESP8266 project and my first post. I became interested into ESP because I have a few homebrew home automation projects based on Arduino and RF433. In the future I'd like to replace these modules with ESP modules.

Last night I got a ESP module working for the first time. I'm programming it using the Arduino IDE and I have a basic HTTP webserver WiFi client that can toggle a LED. Very much the Hello World of ESP I presume.

I've hooked up the ESP to a 12v-5v-3.3v breakout board and I am using the Arduino brand USB Serial light adapter (programmer). In my case I didn't use a logic level converter for the ESP RX pin, as it turns out the logic level converter I have is broken.

The RF433 transmitter board is a FS1000A. After hooking it up to the ESP and including the Arduino library I got no errors and uploaded the code. It runs but it doesn't work. I've used the same transmitters with an ATTiny running on 3 volts using a coin cell battery.

In case you are wondering why I am trying to use a RF transmitter in the first place; I am currently hosting a webserver on an Arduino Ethernet that receives HTTP requests and sends out codes via RF433. That way I control lights using RF433 but still have web capabilities for use with my smartphone. I would like to keep it that way for now, ideally my new projects will both have WiFi and RF433 so I can use cheap sensors and low power ATTiny's to control lights as well as a web interface. I hope that makes sense.

The library is called RemoteTransmitter, here's the code I added to the original sketch:
Code: Select all#include <RemoteTransmitter.h>
int period = 362;
int pin = 2;
// ..
void setup() {
  // ..
  pinMode(pin, OUTPUT);
  // ..
}

void loop(){
  // ..
  // Val is set by incoming HTTP requests
  RemoteTransmitter::sendCode(pin, val, period, 3);
  // ..
}


Unfortunately I don't have an oscilloscope so I have no idea how to troubleshoot this. What am I missing? Could it be the data line voltage? I'm not sure what the ATTiny85 output pins supply with regard to the 3v input voltage. I have new bi-directional logic level converters on the way, should I try a voltage multiplier circuit?

Hopefully you guys have any idea's or pointers that could steer me into the right direction.

Thanks for reading.