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Project Notes

#540 ESP-12 DIY Dev Board

Building a programming board for the ESP8266 07/12 variants.

Build

Notes

I have some ESP8266 modules in the ESP-7 and ESP-12E variants. They both work with adapter boards like this.

However, it turns out that programming them on a breadboard can be a bit flakey - mainly due to power/connection issues. See LEAP#534 ESP-12 Programming for the background.

So I decided to try a quick build of a programming board to see if performance was more reliable.

The result - excellent. Very reliable programming.

Circuit Design

The circuit implements the recommended programming/runtime circuit. Note that some of the pull-up resistors are actually on the adapter board - these are marked as “built-in” in the schematic.

Breadboard

Schematic

Protoboard Construction

I used a piece of 5x7cm protoboard, with the circuit layed out as follows:

build_layout

Some quick and dirty soldering..

build_back

Final build, on a cardboard base:

build_front

Programming

The process:

  • seat the ESP-12 board
  • connect USB adapter
  • connect power >4.5V
  • set the “Run/Prog” switch to “Prog”
  • press “Reset” to reset the board into programming mode
  • upload the program

When using the Arduino IDE, the most recent settings I used were as follows:

programming_options

Credits and References

About LEAP#540 ESP8266
Project Source on GitHub Project Gallery Return to the LEAP Catalog

This page is a web-friendly rendering of my project notes shared in the LEAP GitHub repository.

LEAP is just my personal collection of projects, usually involving an Arduino or other microprocessor in one way or another. Some are full-blown projects, while many are trivial breadboard experiments, intended to learn and explore something interesting (IMHO!).

The projects are usually inspired by things found wild on the net, or ideas from the sources such as:

Feel free to borrow liberally, and if you spot any issues do let me know. See the individual projects for credits where due. There are even now a few projects contributed by others - send your own over in a pull request if you would also like to add to this collection.