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USB Serial Adaptor ESP8266

PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:32 am
by tim
Hey All,

Having trouble with AT commands/serial communication using the Arduino IDE 1.0.5/1.0.6 serial console & Termite and CoolTerm terminal program - when I send AT to the Arduino Mega via the serial console ( AT send) the RX light flashes on the Mega board being used but the TX does not so I do not get an OK?

How to cut a 3 month story into a short post... instead of a mega post!

Found this article http://hackaday.com/2014/08/26/new-chip ... ule-its-5/ very interesting and wanted to integrate the ESP8266 into an Arduino project as I have building robots of late.

Back in October 2014 I purchased 6 of these ESP8266EX ver. 090 Soc chips (espressif) from ebay http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ESP8266-Seri ... 2a473ef71a

Docs/pin out/setup info here http://www.electrodragon.com/w/Wi07c

& read a lot here, installed the Lubuntu VM and SDK built the GCC Tool chain however when running the "make" file with the IoT examples the process fails my paths must be wrong so I decided to go back to basics and simple try to communicate with the esp via AT commands.

After many failed attempts following examples tutorial using a Freetronics Mega http://www.freetronics.com.au/collectio ... K4V8Xtrt2s using digital pin 18 & 19 (which are if I read correctly hardware serial 4 ports pins 18 TX & 19 RX, also tried with 2 different EtherMega's I have, I bought the USB serial adaptor http://www.freetronics.com.au/collectio ... K4YQntrt2s and a Logic level converter http://www.freetronics.com.au/collectio ... K4V1Xtrt2s wired everything up for the thousandth time and no luck sending AT commands to the module from any freetronics device.

Aware of the recent FTDI drama's how does this effect freetronics boards? as they have no ftdi chip? So I Posted on the Freetronics forum and a staff member replied that "We haven't used FTDI chips since the "TwentyTen" board, so nothing to worry about on that front". I have built and powered the device externally using a variable voltage regulator LM317 set to 3.3 volts as well as straight off the boards. have used a variety of power supplies, the 3.3 volt step down reg is powered by a 12 volt 12 amp and is very consistent capable of supply more than the quoted Amperage figures. Currently using the Serial adapter or Mega to power the esp as I had the same problem using a decent power source.

OS's used - Mac OSX Mountain Lion, Linux Debian, Windoze 8 pro, Win 7, XP , TX is going to RX and vice a versa? 3.3volt to 3.3 volt GND to GND, apparently these thing release the goodness of magic smoke at 5 volt but are hungry and can consume up to 300ma, they also can get quite warm! Currently one of the esp's I have a 2.2K resistor running from VCC to GH_PD - I have literally tried every baud rate but use 115200

I have covered all of the trouble shooting steps I can think of ie. pin outs, dodgy jumper wire, usb cables, ect. ect., run the continuity tester over ever exposed possible pin, everything seems good on the freetronics hardware side & the ESP8266 / setup two UNO's (elevens) http://www.freetronics.com.au/collectio ... K4VwXtrt2s as master and slave to talk to each other just check hardware & sanity ;) no dramas that has been working fine, the serial monitor prints x = ... all good.

So I'm lost....the ESP appears as a AP after power up using the Arduino hardware so it can't be dead, I assume it's showing as an AP but is actually a Station maybe? as AT+GMR does not list any info and I haven't been able to join my AP as a result. The ESP8266 appears on my phone as a AP is open and has an IP Address however will only load a web page 75% of the way I found some basic HTML pages to load but that timed out/failed Image despite this I still do not get any information back from the serial console when sending AT commands?

I could go on all day I've poured 10's of hours into this still no cigar! happy to answer any questions, any ideas, thoughts, opinions would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance if you read all this and can assist.

Cheers