ESP8266 Community Forum

Hope this is the right spot to ask this question. So...

The setup is an ESP-01 (purchased off of ebay).
Separate 3.3 voltage supply.
FTDI usb to ttl serial adapter (http://www.ebay.com/itm/FT232RL-3-3V-5- ... SwrklVMjIp).
OS linux mint.

For programming I have to following setup:
VCC = 3.3V power supply
GND = GND
RESET = PULLUP to 3.3V (with a button to GND)
GPIO0 = GND
RX = TX serial pin
TX = RX serial pin
GPIO2 = floating (although tried 3.3V )
CH_PD = 3.3V

The issue I am having is that when I try to upload a new firmware with the esptool.py the upload begin. After running for a bit, it fails with the message "timed out waiting for packet header". Tried it several times and it always fails in the same spot. At this point I am wondering if the FTDI is bad. I saw several other posts on this site and others sites point to cheap FTDI adapters that can cause problems with uploading firmware to the ESP-01. The thing that is odd to me is that the FTDI did read the stock firmware that was set at the factory before trying to upload the new firmware. Also when using the arduino IDE I could upload a new program to the ESP-01 without any errors. But when the ESP-01 was reset, the program did not run on the ESP-01. The serial arduino monitor just return garabage at the reset of the ESP-01 unit.

Also tried using the espressif flash uploader on windows 7 pro. This also failed when uploading the firmware. The flash uploader always failed in the same spot.

Does anyone know how to confirm that the FTDI is not the problem, but the problem is somewhere else?

Forgot to add: Several times I tried connecting the GPIO 0 to the DTR pin on the FTDI serial adapter. This did not work either.

Found a work around for now. Configured an arduino uno r3 as an USB to Serial device. Used a level shiftier to translate the 5v logic to 3.3v. The first time I tried this I forgot to add the common ground across the level shiftier.

It would now appear that there is a problem with the FT232L usb to serial device for flashing the esp8266. Anyone have a suggestion for a good usb to serial device module?