ESP8266 Community Forum

- Thu Nov 22, 2018 9:43 pm #79239 I have a few AI-Thinker ESP8266 "Yellow Dev Boards" that came with attached AA battery packs, and I'm trying to program them with the Arduino IDE running on a Win 7 machine, using a (known good), FTDI 232 module. This is the module:

esp8266hints.wordpress.com/2016/02/16/yet-another-offering-from-ai-thinker/

When I apply power to the board using the battery pack, it appears to boot up normally, and the correct LEDs come on. If I insert the programming jumper on the board, it seems to react properly, as reflected by the LED lights.

I just can't seem to communicate with the board, either through the serial monitor function of the Arduino IDE, or by uploading a simple sketch, like blink.ino.

Has anyone else been using these devices successfully, and if so, how do you communicate with them?

Thanks,
Seth

- Fri Nov 23, 2018 3:55 am #79241 Yes, these boards work just fine; in fact it was the very first ESP development board I've ever used.

First test your connection:

• Connect your USB -> serial convertor to your PC and install its drivers (if not already done)
• Open a terminal program, like PuTTY and select the COM-port of the convertor and set the rate at 74880 baud (yes: this odd baud-rate is correct), no parity, 8 bits, 1 stop bit (or "N-8-1") and echo off.
• Type something on your keyboard: nothing should appear on screen.
  Now connect the TX- and the RX-lines to each other and if you now type something, the same keys should appear on screen this time.
  
  If the above works as expected, you can continue:
• Connect the TX of the convertor to the RX of the board and the TX of the board to the RX of the convertor
  (note: I've had a board in the past, can't remember what kind, that had confusing labelling: you might need to connect the pin marked TX to the TX of the convertor and RX to RX if the step below doesn't work)
• Now power on the board (put the batteries in) with the jumper set to the RUN (open) position
  If you see boot messages on screen, all is fine and you can continue to the next step, otherwise reverse the RX and TX leads and try again
  
  Now you know you can communicate with the board, lets use it with the Arduino IDE.
• Load up the blink example for the ESP and set the board settings to "Generic ESP8266 board"; see if it compiles (don't upload yet at this stage).
• Take a female-female DuPont lead and connect one end to GND
  
  
• Place a jumper over the FLASH-pins and briefly connect (so connect and release) the other end of the DuPont cable to the REST (reset) pin: this will put your board into programming mode
• Now press the upload-button in the Arduino IDE and the board should be flashed if all is fine
• After upload is complete, remove the FLASH-jumper and give the board another RESET
• Your program should now be running (LED flashing in the blink example)

Assumption is the mother of all f*ckups. At least: that's what I'm assuming.