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By PsySc0rpi0n
#69899 Hello everybody.
I have purchased a PCB item containing the ESP8266 module on ebay.
Can I ask for help for this third party item containing an original Espressif module in this forum? I actually want to try to bypass the PCB in order to try to work only with the espressif module itself.

Thanks
Psy
User avatar
By PsySc0rpi0n
#69960 Well, this is already a long story even before I start it!

I'll try to summarise my struggle to keep this short and clean.

First things first:
The board I bought is this one:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/chea ... ore-gpio#/

This looks like the site of the build of this PCB but looks like there is very little documentation about this board.

Just a side note:
I'll call "board" when I want to refer to the PCB and the ESP8266 module and I'll call "module" to the ESP8266 module itslef!

I wanted to test the serial connection of this board/module by sending commands such as AT, etc to check the reply but I still couldn't do it. The struggle is that I have already tried about everything and as I'm not that experienced with this ESP8266 module I'm afraid I might have damaged it but I'm not sure!

I have already flashed this 3 firmwares for testing purposes, using esptool.py:
ai-thinker-0.9.5.2-9600.bin
ai-thinker-0.9.5.2-115200.bin
nodemcu_float_0.9.6-dev_20150704.bin

I have tried putty, Arduino Serial monitor and also ESPlorer to try to send the serial commands and I can't get an answer.

I already tried a direct connection with an UART-to-Serial converter and I also tried to communicate with it using an Arduino Uno R3 but still can't send any serial commands and get an answer.

When I press the Reset button on this board, I only get weird chars but not even changing baud rate fixes it! Not in putty, ESPlorer or Arduino Serial Monitor.

In ESPlorer I get a message saying "Port Open" and "Communicating with device OK" but then it should auto-detect the firmware but it only says it can't detect the firmware. Then it says to reset device or to continue! But I can't get any answer after trying to send a serial command such as AT.

I'm going to take some screens and I'll post them here later.

The help I need is to check some signals in the module. If someone tells me "ahh that one sounds wrong" then probably I can say it is damaged, however I can upload regular code to it using Arduino IDE and the module connects to my home wireless network!

ESPlorer shows me this:
Image

The code I'm uploading using Arduino IDE is this:
Code: Select all#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <WiFiClient.h>
#include <ESP8266WebServer.h>

const char* ssid     = "XXXxxxXXX";
const char* password = "yyyYYYyyy";

ESP8266WebServer server(80); // HTTP server on port 80

void setup() {
   Serial.begin(115200);
   WiFi.disconnect(); // Disconnect AP
   WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);
   WiFi.begin(ssid, password); // Connect to WIFI network

// Wait for connection
   while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
      delay(500);
      Serial.println(".");
   }
   Serial.print("Connected to ");
   Serial.println(ssid);
   Serial.print("IP address: ");
   Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());
   server.on("/", [](){
                        server.send(200, "text/plain", "Hello World");
                      }
   );

   server.begin(); // Start HTTP server
   Serial.println("HTTP server started.");
}

void loop() {
   server.handleClient();
}


I can see the module connected to my wireless network.

I have tried so many configuration combinations in ESPlorer and in putty and also in Arduino Serial Monitor that I can't remember of anything else! Of course, my knowledge is also limited!

So, if anyone knows of anything else I can do, please let me know! Otherwise I'll ask help to check signals on all ESP8266 module to check if there is the change of a damaged module!