NodeMCU v2

ESP8266 development board for wifi --Michael Erskine (talk) 13:39, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

So I sent off to China for a NodeMCU board (for £3.55 from http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291505733201 at time of writing) thinking that it might be fun to have something that talks over wifi, then forgot all about it. When it arrived in the post yesterday I wondered how I use it! I plugged it into a Windows 7 development PC with the micro USB and Windows went off and installed the CP2102 UART bridge driver. So then it presented itself as a serial port in the Windows Device Manager. I pointed a terminal at it (the free and relatively open Teraterm Pro) and after some faffing worked out it wanted a 115k baudrate. A little web searching revealed that it is expecting AT commands and there's a magic command "AT+GMR" - Cool!

   AT+GMR
   AT version:0.40.0.0(Aug  8 2015 14:45:58)
   SDK version:1.3.0
   Ai-Thinker Technology Co.,Ltd.
   Build:1.3.0.2 Sep 11 2015 11:48:04
   OK

But how do I load a LUA script onto it? The NodeMCU website says nowt, so a bit of web searching and it seems that Arduino IDE can be used - very cool!

• http://esp8266.github.io/Arduino/versions/2.1.0/doc/installing.html

The Boards Manager within recent Arduino releases takes care of the installation of toolchains and whatever magic that Arduino needs. It downloaded a metric shedload of stuff (153,527kb of who-knows-what!) and then...

• http://nodemcu.readthedocs.org/en/dev/en/

   AT+RST
   OK
    ets Jan  8 2013,rst cause:2, boot mode:(3,6)
   load 0x40100000, len 1396, room 16 
   tail 4
   chksum 0x89
   load 0x3ffe8000, len 776, room 4 
   tail 4
   chksum 0xe8
   load 0x3ffe8308, len 540, room 4 
   tail 8
   chksum 0xc0
   csum 0xc0

   2nd boot version : 1.4(b1)
     SPI Speed      : 40MHz
     SPI Mode       : DIO
     SPI Flash Size & Map: 8Mbit(512KB+512KB)
   jump to run user1 @ 1000

   n't use rtc mem data
   rl?�?n�dÿ
   Ai-Thinker Technology Co.,Ltd.

   ready
   WIFI DISCONNECT
   AT+GMR

   AT version:0.40.0.0(Aug  8 2015 14:45:58)
   SDK version:1.3.0
   Ai-Thinker Technology Co.,Ltd.
   Build:1.3.0.2 Sep 11 2015 11:48:04
   OK

So in trying to use ESPlorer to send LUA command line commands I just get lots of errors but the AT commands work fine. So I'm thinking that a firmware update might save it. Not knowing what I actually have bought is a bit of a problem! There some comparisons here: http://frightanic.com/iot/comparison-of-esp8266-nodemcu-development-boards/

   2nd generation / v1.0 / V2
   The V2 fixes the short comings of the initial board, it’s more narrow and fits nicely into bread boards. The chip was upgraded from a ESP-12 to a ESP-12E.

Links

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NodeMCU
• http://nodemcu.com/
• https://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/nodemcu-v2-lua-based-esp8266-development-kit.html
• http://www.seeedstudio.com/recipe/index.php?controller=recipe&action=show&recipe_id=232&ref=product

First Jiffy Programs

Using the Arduino core: -

• Using Arduino 1.6.5, I added support for the nodemcu with the Boards Manager...

• 

• documentation for the ESP8266 Arduino Core is at...
  • http://esp8266.github.io/Arduino/versions/2.0.0/
• Not 100% sure how many digital IO pins I can use - they seem to clash with all sorts of peripherals:
  • see http://esp8266.github.io/Arduino/versions/2.0.0/doc/reference.html#digital-io
  • pragmatic approach is suck-it-and-see!

First Project: Status Boards

• See my GitHub project at https://github.com/msemtd/nodemcu-statusboard
• NodeJS server dishing up the info
• in theory this allows scaling to any number of feeds and boards

Second Project: WiFi-enabled Banjo

• Toby's LED banjo needs to host its own webserver, and perhaps its own WiFi hotspot
  • We are riding the ESP8226 Hype-Cycle until the wheels fall off!

Possible uses for said WiFi hotspot...

• Change colour of lights.
• Provide a link to our soundclound page.
• Piratebox
• Livestreaming from a microphone or small camera located inside banjo. Or pointed at the audience.
• Rickrolling
• Something that fucks with the people at Makerfaire in some way.
• Tiny smoke machine