#540 ESP-12 DIY Dev Board

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

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.

Protoboard Construction

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

Some quick and dirty soldering..

Final build, on a cardboard base:

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:

Credits and References

• LEAP#534 ESP-12 Programming
• ESP-12E - aliexpress seller
• ESP-7/12 adapter boards - aliexpress seller
• ESP8266 Arduino Core - boards doc
• ESP-01/07/12 Series Modules User’s Manual
• ESP8266 Hardware - A Beginner’s Guide to the ESP8266