ESP8266 Community Forum

- Fri Sep 30, 2016 10:42 pm #55941 Dear Mike: I finally could flash the firmware in my esp-01. Now I see another problem. When I power up the esp, the blue led flashes (I think this means that the device is booting and loading the firmware). If I cut the power and after a few minutes I power up again, not always the blue led flashes. If this happens, I cannot see the esp device through the wifi. Is there something wrong?

I have another issue. If I connect a led (using a resistor, of course) to pin 0 (for example) and a servo to pin 2, and then I power up the circuit, the blue led never flashes. But if I disconnect the led and servo, then I power up the circuit, the led flashes and I can see de esp through wifi. Then I connect the led and servo and I execute the example code for GPIO/PWM/SERVO, and it works. Unfortunately, the esp never completes the boot steps if the led or servo are connected. The same happens with other 2 esp-01 that I tried. Is there something wrong?

My best regards!

- Thu Oct 06, 2016 11:46 pm #56173 Dear Mike: I solved the problem related to not booting the esp-01 when it has connected an led and/or a servo: if I put a pull up 3K3 resistor to VCC in GPIO0/GPIO2 where the servo and led are connected, the esp boots correctly. But when I send a command to move the servo, then the esp reboots. What can I do? My best regards!

- Sat Oct 08, 2016 2:28 am #56227 Here's my guess: The ESP8266 is sensitive to power. It's easy to underpower the chip. Sometimes you can flash the ESP8266 just fine but when the wifi is activated, it crashes or restarts. I had this happen once when I powered the chip through the USB on an older laptop. In your case, I think the servo is drawing more than your power supply can adequately dish out. Also, the servo can make for a "dirty" power draw which sensitive 3.3v electronics might not like.

In a case like this, I like to use a 5v power adapter and from that 5v tap I run things like DC motors and other loads. With that same 5v, I run it through a $1 DC to DC converter that takes it to a regulated 3.3v which I know will be good and clean for the electronics.