ESP-12 setup sporadicly working "Ai-Thinker invalid"

Use this forum to chat about hardware specific topics for the ESP8266 (peripherals, memory, clocks, JTAG, programming)
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Re: ESP-12 setup sporadicly working "Ai-Thinker invalid"

By tytower
- Sun May 31, 2015 3:51 pm #19063 I noticed on the ESP8266-12 that its power draw was high. I had the same issues as here and I would wiggle wires and find suddenly the wire came away from the connector .This was on earth ,power and serial lines but I replaced the crappy Hong Kong wires I had to solid and the problems went away. Mostly though it was the RX and TX lines giving trouble

Simon -update to Arduino 1.6.4 ,big changes
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Re: ESP-12 setup sporadicly working "Ai-Thinker invalid"

By Simon
- Wed Jun 03, 2015 4:33 pm #19382 For the ESP-12 I actually had success with an older version of NodeMCU instead of the latest version. I do not have the device with me right now, but I believe it was version 0.9.5_20150318.
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Re: ESP-12 setup sporadicly working "Ai-Thinker invalid"

By tytower
- Thu Jun 04, 2015 3:12 am #19432 I just soldered up another ESP12 board with minimum stuff and put it on a bit of vero board . Works well.
Take solid wire feed through the holes you have to use with a little kink at the end ,pull them down and face kink outwards and solder . cut off at about 3/4 " long with longest in the center and shorter either side so the wires can be rocked in progressively to a piece of veroboard . Much happier with this design .

Pictures show basic setup to flash with a single LED and resistor on pin 13 and a cap between pin 16 and reset for Deepsleep().I use an FTDI cable and Arduino 1.6.4 and the pigtail arrangement is to act as a switch for pin 0 to flash . I'll add my sensors shortly when I work out my battery arrangements.

Just thought it might highlite a problem with that board of yours!
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Re: ESP-12 setup sporadicly working "Ai-Thinker invalid"

By Baoshi
- Thu Jun 04, 2015 8:18 pm #19496 A major cause for "MEM CHECK FAIL" or boot with exceptions is power supply. I have never seen a USB to TTL adapter that can supply enough juice to ESP-xx. Even some wall adapters sucked.
You best bet is to find a good power supply, or make your own regulator using 5V VUSB as source.
Do keep in mind although you can measure current consumption using a multimeter, and idle current seems only 70mA, the board actually takes a huge 450mA pulse at 100ms interval. Multimeter is not able to see that pulse.
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