USB Serial Adaptor ESP8266

[vero96]

Hey All,

Having trouble with AT commands/serial communication using the Arduino IDE 1.0.6 & Termite terminal program - AT (send) RX light goes of on the Mega board being used but the TX does not so I do not get an OK

How to cut a 3 month story into a short post... instead of a mega post!

Found this article http://hackaday.com/2014/08/26/new-chip ... ule-its-5/ very interesting and wanted to integrate the ESP8266 into an Arduino project as I have building robots of late.

Back in October 2014 I purchased 6 of these ESP8266EX ver. 090 Soc chips (espressif) from ebay http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ESP8266-Seri ... 2a473ef71a

Docs/pin out/setup info here http://www.electrodragon.com/w/Wi07c

& here http://bbs.espressif.com/ the above is what I have.

After many failed attempts following examples tutorial using a Freetronics Mega using digital pin 18 & 19 (which are if I read correctly hardware serial 4 ports pins 18 TX & 18 RX, also tried with 2 different EtherMega's I have, I bought the USB serial adaptor and a Logic level converter wire everything up for the thousandth time and no luck sending AT commands to the modual from any freetronics device.

Aware of the recent FDTI drama's how does this effect freetronics boards? as they have no ftdi chip? I have powered the device externally using a variable voltage reg LM317 set to 3.3 volts as well as straight off the boards.

Setups used - Mac OSX Mountain Lion, Linux debian, Windoze 8 pro, Win 7, XP / TX is going to RX and vice a versa? 3.3volt always apparently these thing release the goodness of magic smoke at 5 volt but are hungry and can consume up to 300ma, they also can get quite warm!

I have covered most of the trouble shooting steps ie. dodgy jumper wire, usb cables, ect. ect., run the continuity tester over ever exposed possible pin, everything seems good on the freetronics hardware side & the ESP8266 / setup two elevens as master and slave to talk to each other just check hardware & sanity no dramas that has been working fine, the serial monitor prints x = ... all good.

So I'm lost....the ESP appears as a AP after power up using the arduino hardware so it can't be dead, I assume it's showing as an AP but is actually a Station? as AT+GMR does not list any info and I haven't been able to join my AP as a result.

I could go on all day I've poured 10's of hours into this still no cigar! happy to answer any questions, any ideas, thoughts, opinions would be much appreciated.

Cheers vero

[andrew]

We haven't used FTDI chips since the "TwentyTen" board, so nothing to worry about on that front.
Perhaps post your question on the esp8266.com forum as well?

[vero96]

Hey Johb,

That's what I was curious about I know FTDI changed the PID to 0 bricking fake chips. Thing is the serial adaptor appears as a 16u2 on COM 4 (currently on my win8 PC at least) with the standard driver installed with the FTDI driver installed for testing purposes it appears as a serial port so I'm curious as to if I'm using the USB serial adaptor correctly. Posted my question to the esp forum as advised, wanted to check with you guys first that the Freetronics hardware I am using was capable of doing the required tasks and weather I had it set up correctly I just followed the directions from the Freetronics site re: USB serial adaptor.

Cheers vero

[andrew]

Hey Johb,

That's what I was curious about I know FTDI changed the PID to 0 bricking fake chips. Thing is the serial adaptor appears as a 16u2 on COM 4 (currently on my win8 PC at least) with the standard driver installed with the FTDI driver installed for testing purposes it appears as a serial port so I'm curious as to if I'm using the USB serial adaptor correctly. Posted my question to the esp forum as advised, wanted to check with you guys first that the Freetronics hardware I am using was capable of doing the required tasks and weather I had it set up correctly I just followed the directions from the Freetronics site re: USB serial adaptor.

Cheers vero

The FTDI driver isn't doing anything as the 16U2 is an Atmel part, the PC is using the non-FTDI driver.

[vero96]

Ok it's just that when I connect the USB serial Adaptor to the PC and Plug in the esp8266 and open the Arduino serial console to send a AT command to the esp only the blue LED is lit on the adaptor the RX and TX LED's don't flash at all, correct com port is selected.

Cheers vero

[andrew]

Ok it's just that when I connect the USB serial Adaptor to the PC and Plug in the esp8266 and open the Arduino serial console to send a AT command to the esp only the blue LED is lit on the adaptor the RX and TX LED's don't flash at all, correct com port is selected.

Cheers vero

Have you set the USBserial adaptor to 3.3V?

[vero96]

Hi Johb,

Yes of course it has been set at 3.3volt, also having trouble identifying it on a mac appears as usbmoden411 does that sound right the serial adapter appearing as a usb modem on mac?

edit:- new to the mac world very much like linux just finding my way around the mac is quite different.

cheers

[andrew]

Hi Johb,

Yes of course it has been set at 3.3volt, also having trouble identifying it on a mac appears as usbmoden411 does that sound right the serial adapter appearing as a usb modem on mac?

edit:- new to the mac world very much like linux just finding my way around the mac is quite different.

cheers

Yes, the USB-serial will appear as "...usbmodemxxxx..." in the port list in MacOS.
Try a serial loopback between the USBserial and one of your boards, if that works the ESP8266 is down, otherwise it's the USBserial.