Comments: ESP8266 Thing Development Board Hookup Guide

-------------------- Tech Support Tips/Troubleshooting/Common Issues --------------------

Troubleshooting: Arduino Upload Error

If you see this error in Arduino:

warning: espcomm_sync failed
error: espcomm_open failed

USB Cable

There might be something wrong with your USB cable. Certain cables are designed to be charging cables so there might not be any data lines connected in the USB cable. Also, there might be internal micro tears in the cables. I recommend checking and using a different mini-B cable to see if you can upload code. I had an instance where a customer was using USB cables from his lab. 3 out of the 4 cables were bad because they were damaged. The 4th cable worked with his device.

Power Cycling

If you still can’t upload, try flipping the switch to OFF, press the upload button, and flip the switch to ON. It’s tricky but as you you reset the board, it will be in bootloader mode so that you can upload code before it starts running the code that was uploaded. I saw this more with the other version of the ESP8266. You should not need to do this with the ESP8266 Thing Development board.

Board Definition (boards.txt)

The latest board definition from the ESP8266 Commmunity (v2.0.0) can have issues when uploading code. This might be due to the FTDI's DTR pin not grounding the GPIO0 pin during upload through the IDE. For example, if we look at the SparkFun ESP6266 Thing (NOT the SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev) in your boards.txt file, you will notice the third line for the board says:

thing.upload.resetmethod=ck

You would need to change the reset method to nodemcu like so:

thing.upload.resetmethod=nodemcu

Read here for more information from a comment from someone in the community https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13711#comment-56705515ce395fb2608b456a.

Troubleshooting Note for those using Arduino v.1.6.6 and v1.6.7…

You need to have your modular functions set BEFORE void setup() and void loop(), otherwise the Arduino v1.6.6 and v1.6.7 compilers will not recognize the defined functions (even though they are in the same sketch file).

Try looking at this comment for more information https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/esp8266-thing-hookup-guide/discuss#comment-564bb49bce395fe4518b4568 .

Serial Output Error

If you see this error using the ESP8266 board add-on v2.1.0 from the ESP8266 Community sometimes when connecting to the Instagram API :

.
.
.
ets Jan 8 2013,rst cause:2, boot mode:(3,7)

load 0x4010f000, len 1264, room 16
tail 0
chksum 0x42
csum 0x42

It could be something with the version that you are using. Try rolling the board add-on back to v2.0.0 from the ESP8266 Community . There was a customer with this issue and they were able to get it resolved by rolling back the version.

ESP8266 Thing Dev Board Phant Example (RETIRED)

Unfortunately Phant, our data-streaming service, is no longer in service. The system has reached capacity and, like a less-adventurous Cassini, has plunged conclusively into a fiery and permanent retirement. Therefore, any Phant related example that used in this tutorial has been removed and archived here:

• [ https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/retired-phant-examples---esp8266-thing-development-board-hookup-guide ]

The code in the archived tutorial will need to be adjusted to work with the other data streams. Check out this tutorial to log data with ThingSpeak.

Phant (RETIRED) Formatting Issues

For some strange reason there was an issue exporting Phant as a .CSV file. It might be the way the code was written or it could be something with Phant. I have yet to test this out. Here is a quick fix and some tips as stated from a customer :

.
.
.
The .CSV file has extra spaces in the numbers 68.54 comes in as text 68(space)(space).54 . To convert it from text to values you can plot, you can use the Excel functions: =VALUE(SUBSTITUTE(A2," ","")) on each cell...

Also the data comes into the file ordered new data first to old data. Most people want to plot and process old data to new.

To make mDNS work, you need to add

MDNS.update();

at the top of loop().

Also note that mDNS doesn't work on Windows unless you go to some special effort (Google for it).

having a hard time connecting to wifi; I never get the full message from my Thing 8266 Dev board connecting to my server. Trying to do the simplest Blynk code. Suggestions?

I cant find any data on how many mA each pin can pass. How much current can the pins produce?

In the Web Server examples, you should change this line near to the bottom:

void initHardware()
{
    Serial.begin(115200); // <<<<<<< this one

to this:

    Serial.begin(9600); // or try if some higher value works, definitely not 115200

Otherwise, in the serial monitor, you will see garbage instead of the expected output from Serial.println() commands

At https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/esp8266-thing-development-board-hookup-guide/example-sketch-web-server it says: "The previous example uses the ESP8266 in web client mode"

What previous example?? There's no previous example, that is the first example in the tutorial. The previous page explained how to upload the "blink" sketch, which doesn't "use the ESP8266 in web client mode" as it does nothing network-related.

When trying out the "Station (and mDNS) Web Server" sketch, my Windows 10 PC could not resolve "thing.local". Windows Bonjour service was installed and running, but was not recognizing the ESP8266 domain. Adding the line "MDNS.addService("http", "tcp", 80);" to the bottom of setupMDNS() fixed the problem.

I don't see anything on the schematic to protect a battery connected to the power connector from being charged by the USB input. Am I going to ruin my LiPo battery by connecting the USB cable to program the ESP8266?

I am using a separate charger board to charge the battery.

Is the NC pin connected to the ground plane? If yes, can it be used as a normal ground connection?

I want to work with official SDK of ESP8266 under the lubuntu based virtual machine, don't know how to get started. Can anyone tell me how to write blinky program with SDK. Thanks

Thanks for this great tutorial.. I'm having a strange problem though.. I was able to get the PHANT demo working, and then I went to solder headers on the dev board, and I came back, and it would no longer connect to my WiFi. I thought for sure I had destroyed the THING board with excessive heat during soldering, but I uploaded a standard ESP8266 "AT" command set firmware onto it, and using that firmware, I was able to connect to my wifi with no problem.. Loading the "Scan wifi" demo under Arduino works fine too, but for some reason, the PHANT demo never connects.. I keep getting a fast flashing blue light, and the wifi connect keeps returning status code 6 (not connected or connecting, I can't remember which).. All my other WiFi devices are fine, and I have been fighting this for days now.. Is there anything strange that could explain this?! Thanks!

Using

• Arduino 1.6.7
• Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan
• esp8266 2.0.0 board definitions
• Sparkfun ESP8266 Thing Dev Board

I ran into the following issue when trying to upload to the board:

warning: espcomm_sync failed
error: espcomm_open failed

It seems that the board definition parameters driving the program upload via esptool, are incorrect for the ESP8266 Thing Dev Board. As a consequence, the DTR and RTS pins of the FTDI USB to Serial chip on the Dev Board are not driven properly to pull the GPIO0 pin to GND during the program upload sequence. However, this is required in order to put the ESP8266 into programming mode.
(also see the Dev Board schematic, section "Auto Reset")

Anyways, after some research, I found out that a change in the boards.txt file fixes this. This file is (at least under my OS X El Capitan) located here:

/Users/USERNAME/Library/Arduino15/packages/esp8266/hardware/esp8266/2.0.0/boards.txt

The line

thing.upload.resetmethod=ck  

needs to be changed to

thing.upload.resetmethod=nodemcu  

Don't forget to save the modified file.

After that the Arduino IDE needs to be restarted. (I also selected another board and then switched back to the ESP8266, although I didn't check if this is required.)

With this modification the program upload works as it used to in previous versions.