Blue led is blinking after powering up the module, the red one stays on, I can even connect to it via wifi. But I cannot program it. I tried Arduino IDE, different firmware flashers (Like NodeMCU, XTCOM). I'm using Arduino Mega.
Here's my initial setup:
VCC - 3.3 V on ArduinoRST - nothingCH_PD - 3.3 V on ArduinoTX - RX on Arduino (TX is transmitting data to RX, so I don't need a voltage divider, right?)RX - voltage divider (R1 = 10K, R2 = 20K) - TX on ArduinoGPIO0 - GND on ArduinoGPIO2 - nothingGND - GND on ArduinoThen I tried uploading a sketch from the Arduino IDE and got the following error:
warning: espcomm_sync failed error: espcomm_open failedAfter trying different IDEs, programmers, serial port I tried firmware flashers to at least see if I can communicate with it. NodeMCU for example justshowed "Waiting MAC" with GPIO0 to ground and without.
I also tried connecting TX to TX and RX to RX but got the same results. Tried connecting RX through a voltage divider as well.
With this setup the blue led was constantly on. I remembered reading somewhere that that could happen due to insufficient power supply, so I also tried connecting both pins without the voltage dividers (the blue led is still blinking after the power up so hopefully I didn't burn them).I also tried connecting GPIO0 to 3.3V and not connecting it to anything at all, connecting RST to 3.3V, connecting GPIO2 to ground as well.On Mega there are 4 sets of TX and RX pins, so I tried them all out TX/RX0,1,2 and 3.
Still no idea what's going on :(
Best Answer
The cause can be one of two things:
Insufficient power. Try to power the ESP8266 from an external 3.3V power supply such as a lab supply. Two fully charged AA batteries should do the trick too. Make sure your serial adapter's GND pin is also connected to the ESP's GND pin in order to provide a common ground.
ESP8266 is not in programming mode. Make sure GPIO0 is attached to GND and turn the ESP off and on again. It will then boot into programming mode. Once programmed, you can take it off GND.
EDIT:
Since this post, I've actually encountered a third, more notorious reason. Some ESP8266 modules (especially the ESP-12 packages) actually come with alternative non-core firmware on them. In this case, you have to update the firmware on the ESP. Here is a great tutorial on how to do this. I highly recommend you use the ESP Flash Download tool which is Windows-only unfortunately, but is less error prone than doing it in a serial terminal. But before you embark on this journey, make sure the cause isn't #1 or #2.
When you connect it up to your serial port, set the baud to 74880, and apply power you should see the initial debug info dumped out to the serial.
You should see something like this:
ets Jan 8 2013,rst cause:2, boot mode:(3,6)load 0x40100000, len 29936, room 16 tail 0chksum 0xeeload 0x3ffe8000, len 2304, room 8 tail 8chksum 0x51load 0x3ffe8900, len 8, room 0 tail 8chksum 0x9ecsum 0x9eIf you are holding GPIO down on boot (to enter flash mode) you should see this
ets Jan 8 2013,rst cause:2, boot mode:(1,6)Notice the change from (3,6) to (1,6)
If you not see anything displayed then double check your TX <> RX and GND connections.
I had the same problem at first but resolved later.
I have provided link at the end of the answer. Just follow it.
Things to remember when working with ESP8266-01:
- You must need a good 3.3VDC power source for ESP8266 to get it work. Do notprovide 3.3V from Arduino instead use LM1117-3.3 voltage regulatorto provide ESP power. It is also crucial that LM1117-3.3 voltage regulator must have input voltage higher than 7V or 9V. Do not feed Arduino's 5V to this regulator.
- R1 should be 1K and R2 should be 2K. For more information, please refer the schematic I have provided in following article for ESP8266-01.
- Pin configuration for flashing/programming ESP8266-01, refer following article.
Just follow my article's section "Deploy -> ESP8266-01 Sketch":https://www.hackster.io/AnuragVasanwala/windows-10-iot-core-hydroflyer-f83190