ESP8266 Community Forum

- Fri Nov 03, 2017 9:06 am #71485 Thanks for the suggestion, I had stumbled across the sonoff but didn't really take it serious (too good a deal?), I love it! Have already ordered one to play around with.

With this I wont even need a power adapter right?

- Fri Nov 03, 2017 8:09 pm #71516

I had stumbled across the sonoff but didn't really take it serious (too good a deal?)

I have to tell you honestly, I don't like the Sonoff. Really.

Why don't I like them? Because they are so cheap. And I have a hard time justifying (to myself) to not use them. The problem is that I design stuff like that. It is what I do for a living. (hardware design)

The company I work for makes control electronics. I don't like to use the stuff we have at work because it is all Microchip CPU based designs. But since I am not a programmer I decided to work with the Arduino framework because it was the easiest way for me to get things done. Least amount of pain to get a led to blink.

When I came across the ESP8266 I lost interest in using the Nanos, ProMini, and Uno. (the do have their place ) The ESP8266 allows so much more creative things to do. But since I am a hardware designer I fully expected to make boards the way I wanted. There are some things that I don't like about the Sonoff products but they really are fantastic for the price. And little work to get stuff done. But I can't see myself buying any. I'm going to do it my way, because. Yeah, just because.

- Sun Nov 05, 2017 8:55 am #71563 Hey guys,

What's the fun in buying something like this when you can easily build it yourself.

ESPrelay31.jpg

- You do not need to use a cloud based server (AWS like Sonoff) think privacy
- You can make it accessible fom within your home network and outside
- I made mine manual overridable. So if someone is at home they just
push a button on the device and it overrules any network activity
- much more fun to build yourself
- Dead cheap: .50 cents for a relay, 2 euro for a Wemos D1 mini, 2 Dollar for a power outlet. Few cents for switches and a relay. Printed my own casing
- Fully customizable
- Easy to build and fun.

Here is my design:
http://lucstechblog.blogspot.nl/2016/09 ... erver.html

Luc

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http://lucstechblog.blogspot.nl

- Sun Nov 05, 2017 1:24 pm #71566

I would like to create a wifi controlled realy. So far i'm considering a NodeMCU v2 + Relay + generic 5v Power adapter or a plain ESP8266 board + relay + serial adapter (would a raspberry pi 3b work for this?) + 3.3v Power supply.

It appears to me that the NodeMCU build would be slightly more expensive, but much more compact and simpler for a beginner. Is that assesment correct?

Would like to hear any and all suggestions to do this the "simplest" possible way.

Thanks for any advice!

I'm a very new user but I have been experimenting with the NodeMCU 12e board and I'm finding it very versatile please remember that it runs on 3.3 V not 5 V for any pins that require a better signal either use a 10k pull-up resistor or better still use a convertible 3.3 to 5 and 5 to 3.3.
As I say I'm still a very new user I'm sure there's lots more people here to give you good advice.
I haven't used a raspberry PI yet so can't comment, but to me they appear to be the difference between chalk and cheese the Rasberry PI is more of a full-blown computer, and the ES8266 is a more humble microprocessor.