ESP8266 Community Forum

- Sun Sep 26, 2021 1:40 am #92458 Hi

Very much newbie to electronics (been a software developer for many years though) - and I've got Arduino UNOs, and ESP8266's - along with PIRs with the grand idea of creating my own security system - using a central webserver, which the UNO's can communicate to via wifi through the 8266.

Getting along with various tutorials for the UNO with no issues - however, I've tried a number of youtube 'how to's to get the 8266 working - both creating an access point and also connecting to existing network - however, none work. There also seems to be inconsistency between the various how-tos - e.g. some directly connect the RX/TX directly to the 8266, some say you need a splitter to step down the voltage from the UNO's 5v to the 3.3v required by the 8266...

The best result I've had so far was hooking the RX/TX to the UNOs RX/TX, opening the serial monitor and performing a reset on the 8266 - with the thought that I could use AT commands to at least check that my 8266's are working correctly. My understanding is that it should output some version information - the best I've got is that it responds, but with garbage characters - classic 'I've got the baud rate wrong' - however I tried all baud rates supported by the arduino editors serial monitor, but got the same results.

Also, for info, I've got five 8266's and three UNOs - all three UNOs have been checked and work fine - I've been very careful to use apply the 3.3v from the UNO. At this point, I don't know whether the 8266's are working correctly (they do have a red light, so I know they're receiving power) - and I don't know if they've had any firmware applied - although as mentioned, when performing a reset (ground out the reset pin), I do get some text (although its garbage - ?s etc) so I'm assuming that it is actually responding...

I think it would be best, if someone could recommend an idiots-guide to connect a 8266 to an UNO, and get it to connect to an existing network - preferably via youtube, because its generally easier to follow, but I'm happy with a normal web how-to...

Apologies that there's not much detail in the above - but I suspect I'm probably best going back to basics and working things through from a good guide...

Hope that makes sense..

Many thanks

Carl.

- Mon Sep 27, 2021 1:40 am #92465 Apologies - one bit I noticed I'd forgot to mention - the board type is 'ESP-01' (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32693314450.html) - please note, I'd not purchased the programmer, just the ESP01 boards - thinking that I should be able to program it via the UNO.

Hope that helps

Thanks

Carl.

- Mon Sep 27, 2021 3:06 am #92467 This is the only advice I'm going to give at this point:

• Drop the UNO: the ESP can perform your grand idea on its own
• Don't use the plain ESP-01 / ESP-12 modules (at least for now) and get yourself a development board, like a NodeMCU or Wemos to get you started
• Don't use AT commands: it's a world of hurt to use and should be considered only as ESP testing firmware

By using a development board you will be up and running in no time, since you don't have to worry about the electronics side of your project (at the start).

I find RandomNerdTutorials a nice resource of information, so have a look over there to get inspired.

Keep us posted.

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

- Mon Sep 27, 2021 11:02 am #92472 Many thanks - I'll have a look