ESP8266 Community Forum

Sounds great!
Noob questions:

What is it?

What can it do?

How exactly can one upgrade firmware using this?

Thanks so much!

Tim

It just makes it simpler to use the chip.

Arduino is a project using different processors (AVR,SAM), however the IDE they provide can have custom 'cores' installed for chips otherwise unsupported by the official code. (the SDK you use in the code & a ready to go compiler/uploader).

Some nice people here have packaged a version of the Arduino IDE with the custom core already installed. There are also at least two GitHub repos with the core you can manually install into the IDE (if you already use the Arduino IDE).

If you have a copy of the latest firmware, you should be able to paste/open it into the IDE and simply hit upload.

As for whether the new firmware can be simply dropped in without tweaks (for the IDE), I do not know. I received my ESP-12's yesterday so I'm in the process of putting my modules together to test this out too.

Have you been able to communicate from your Arduino to your ESP8266-12. I have tried but I just get garbage back no matter what baud rate I use. I am using a voltage divider on the TX and RX using 10MOhm and 20 MOhm resistors. I am not sure this is needed from the TX pin on the ESP to the RX pin on the Arduino. I also tried a 3.3V zener diode but this was also unsuccessful. I diagram would be useful if you have got it right.

ramsbod
You don't tell us what esp8266 firmware you are using.

For connection info see this https://github.com/sleemanj/ESP8266_Simple

Pay attention to what he says about the 3.3v supply and sharing a common ground.