ESP-LINK

This firmware connects an attached micro-controller to the internet using a ESP8266 Wifi module. It implements a number of features:

• transparent bridge between Wifi and serial, useful for debugging or inputting into a uC
• flash-programming attached Arduino/AVR microcontrollers as well as LPC800-series and other ARM microcontrollers via Wifi
• outbound TCP (and thus HTTP) connections from the attached micro-controller to the internet
• outbound REST HTTP requests from the attached micro-controller to the internet, protocol based on espduino and compatible with tuanpmt/espduino

The firmware includes a tiny HTTP server based on esphttpd with a simple web interface, many thanks to Jeroen Domburg for making it available! Many thanks to https://github.com/brunnels for contributions around the espduino functionality.

###Releases

• V2.0.beta2 has REST support but requires a 1MByte or 4MByte ESP8266 flash, e.g. esp-12 or wroom-02
• V1.0.1 is stable and has the web server, transparent bridge, flash-programming support, but lacks the REST and upcoming MQTT support. V1 works with 512KB flash, e.g. esp-1, esp-3, ...

For quick support and questions:

Esp-link uses

The simplest use of esp-link is as a transparent serial to wifi bridge. You can flash an attached uC over wifi and you can watch the uC's serial debug output by connecting to port 23 or looking at the uC Console web page.

The next level is to use the outbound connectivity of esp-link in the uC code. For example, the uC can use REST requests to services like thingspeak.com to send sensor values that then get stored and plotted by the external service. The uC can also use REST requests to retrieve simple configuration information or push other forms of notifications. (MQTT functionality is forthcoming.)

An additional option is to add code to esp-link to customize it and put all the communication code into esp-link and only keep simple sensor/actuator control in the attached uC. In this mode the attached uC sends custom commands to esp-link with sensor/acturator info and registers a set of callbacks with esp-link that control sensors/actuators. This way, custom commands in esp-link can receive MQTT messages, make simple callbacks into the uC to get sensor values or change actuators, and then respond back with MQTT. The way this is architected is that the attached uC registers callbacks at start-up such that the code in the esp doesn't need to know which exact sensors/actuators the attached uC has, it learns thta through the initial callback registration.

Eye Candy

These screen shots show the Home page, the Wifi configuration page, the console for the attached microcontroller, and the pin assignments card:

Hardware info

This firmware is designed for esp8266 modules which have most ESP I/O pins available and at least 1MB flash. (The V1 firmware supports modules with 512KB flash). The default connections are:

• URXD: connect to TX of microcontroller
• UTXD: connect to RX of microcontroller
• GPIO12: connect to RESET of microcontroller
• GPIO13: connect to ISP of LPC/ARM microcontroller (not used with Arduino/AVR)
• GPIO0: optionally connect green "conn" LED to 3.3V (indicates wifi status)
• GPIO2: optionally connect yellow "ser" LED to 3.3V (indicates serial activity)

If you are using an FTDI connector, GPIO12 goes to DTR and GPIO13 goes to CTS.

If you are using an esp-12 module, you can avoid the initial boot message from the esp8266 bootloader by using the swap-pins option. This swaps the esp8266 TX/RX to gpio15/gpio13 respectively.

The GPIO pin assignments can be changed dynamically in the web UI and are saved in flash.

Initial flashing

(This is not necessary if you receive one of the jn-esp or esp-bridge modules from the author!) If you want to simply flash the provided firmware binary, you can download the latest release and use your favorite ESP8266 flashing tool to flash the bootloader, the firmware, and blank settings. Detailed instructions are provided in the release notes.

Note that the firmware assumes a 512KB flash chip, which most of the esp-01 thru esp-11 modules appear to have. A larger flash chip should work but has not been tested.

Wifi configuration overview

For proper operation the end state the esp-link needs to arrive at is to have it join your pre-existing wifi network as a pure station. However, in order to get there the esp-link will start out as an access point and you'll have to join its network to configure it. The short version is:

1. the esp-link creates a wifi access point with an SSID of the form ESP_012ABC
2. you join your laptop or phone to the esp-link's network as a station and you configure the esp-link wifi with your network info by pointing your browser at http://192.168.4.1/
3. the esp-link starts to connect to your network while continuing to also be an access point ("AP+STA"), the esp-link may show up with a esp-link.local hostname (depends on your DHCP/DNS config)
4. the esp-link succeeds in connecting and shuts down its own access point after 15 seconds, you reconnect your laptop/phone to your normal network and access esp-link via its hostname or IP address

LED indicators

Assuming appropriate hardware attached to GPIO pins, the green "conn" LED will show the wifi status as follows:

• Very short flash once a second: not connected to a network and running as AP+STA, i.e. trying to connect to the configured network
• Very short flash once every two seconds: not connected to a network and running as AP-only
• Even on/off at 1HZ: connected to the configured network but no IP address (waiting on DHCP)
• Steady on with very short off every 3 seconds: connected to the configured network with an IP address (esp-link shuts down its AP after 15 seconds)

The yellow "ser" LED will blink briefly every time serial data is sent or received by the esp-link.

Wifi configuration details

After you have serially flashed the module it will create a wifi access point (AP) with an SSID of the form ESP_012ABC where 012ABC is a piece of the module's MAC address. Using a laptop, phone, or tablet connect to this SSID and then open a browser pointed at http://192.168.4.1/, you should then see the esp-link web site.

Now configure the wifi. The desired configuration is for the esp-link to be a station on your local wifi network so you can communicate with it from all your computers.

To make this happen, navigate to the wifi page and you should see the esp-link scan for available networks. You should then see a list of detected networks on the web page and you can select yours. Enter a password if your network is secure (highly recommended...) and hit the connect button.

You should now see that the esp-link has connected to your network and it should show you its IP address. Write it down. You will then have to switch your laptop, phone, or tablet back to your network and then you can connect to the esp-link's IP address or, depending on your network's DHCP/DNS config you may be able to go to http://esp-link.local

At this point the esp-link will have switched to STA mode and be just a station on your wifi network. These settings are stored in flash and thereby remembered through resets and power cycles. They are also remembered when you flash new firmware. Only flashing blank.bin via the serial port as indicated above will reset the wifi settings.

There is a fail-safe, which is that after a reset or a configuration change, if the esp-link cannot connect to your network it will revert back to AP+STA mode after 15 seconds and thus both present its ESP_012ABC-style network and continue trying to reconnect to the requested network. You can then connect to the esp-link's AP and reconfigure the station part.

One open issue (#28) is that esp-link cannot always display the IP address it is getting to the browser used to configure the ssid/password info. The problem is that the initial STA+AP mode may use channel 1 and you configure it to connect to an AP on channel 6. This requires the ESP8266's AP to also switch to channel 6 disconnecting you in the meantime.

Troubleshooting

• verify that you have sufficient power, borderline power can cause the esp module to seemingly function until it tries to transmit and the power rail collapses
• check the "conn" LED to see which mode esp-link is in (see LED info above)
• reset or power-cycle the esp-link to force it to become an access-point if it can't connect to your network within 15-20 seconds
• if the LED says that esp-link is on your network but you can't get to it, make sure your laptop is on the same network (and no longer on the esp's network)
• if you do not know the esp-link's IP address on your network, try esp-link.local, try to find the lease in your DHCP server; if all fails, you may have to turn off your access point (or walk far enough away) and reset/power-cycle esp-link, it will then fail to connect and start its own AP after 15-20 seconds

Building the firmware

The firmware has been built using the esp-open-sdk on a Linux system. Create an esp8266 directory, install the esp-open-sdk into a sub-directory. Download the Espressif SDK (use the version mentioned in the release notes) from their download forum and also expand it into a sub-directory. Then clone the esp-link repository into a third sub-directory. This way the relative paths in the Makefile will work. If you choose a different directory structure look at the Makefile for the appropriate environment variables to define.

In order to OTA-update the esp8266 you should export ESP_HOSTNAME=... with the hostname or IP address of your module.

Now, build the code: make in the top-level of esp-link.

A few notes from others (I can't fully verify these):

• You may need to install zlib1g-dev and python-serial
• Make sure you have the correct version of the esp_iot_sdk
• Make sure the paths at the beginning of the makefile are correct
• Make sure esp-open-sdk/xtensa-lx106-elf/bin is in the PATH set in the Makefile

Flashing the firmware

This firmware supports over-the-air (OTA) flashing, so you do not have to deal with serial flashing again after the initial one! The recommended way to flash is to use make wiflash if you are also building the firmware. If you are downloading firmware binaries use ./wiflash. make wiflash assumes that you set ESP_HOSTNAME to the hostname or IP address of your esp-link. You can easily do that using something like ESP_HOSTNAME=192.168.1.5 make wiflash.

The flashing, restart, and re-associating with your wireless network takes about 15 seconds and is fully automatic. The 512KB flash are divided into two 236KB partitions allowing for new code to be uploaded into one partition while running from the other. This is the official OTA upgrade method supported by the SDK, except that the firmware is POSTed to the module using curl as opposed to having the module download it from a cloud server.

If you are downloading the binary versions of the firmware (links forthcoming) you need to have both user1.bin and user2.bin handy and run wiflash.sh <esp-hostname> user1.bin user2.bin. This will query the esp-link for which file it needs, upload the file, and then reconnect to ensure all is well.

Note that when you flash the firmware the wifi settings are all preserved so the esp-link should reconnect to your network within a few seconds and the whole flashing process should take 15-30 from beginning to end. If you need to clear the wifi settings you need to reflash the blank.bin using the serial port.

The flash configuration and the OTA upgrade process is described in more detail in FLASH.md

Serial bridge and connections to Arduino, AVR, ARM, LPC microcontrollers

In order to connect through the esp-link to a microcontroller use port 23. For example, on linux you can use nc esp-hostname 23 or telnet esp-hostname 23.

You can reprogram an Arduino / AVR microcontroller by pointing avrdude at port 23. Instead of specifying a serial port of the form /dev/ttyUSB0 use net:esp-link:23 with avrdude's -P option (where esp-link is either the hostname of your esp-link or its IP address). The esp-link detects that avrdude starts its connection with a flash synchronization sequence and sends a reset to the AVR microcontroller so it can switch into flash programming mode.

You can reprogram NXP's LPC800-series and many other ARM processors as well by pointing your programmer similarly at the esp-link's port 23. For example, if you are using https://github.com/jeelabs/embello/tree/master/tools/uploader a command line like uploader -t -s -w esp-link:23 build/firmware.bin does the trick. The way it works is that the uploader uses telnet protocol escape sequences in order to make esp-link issue the appropriate "ISP" and reset sequence to the microcontroller to start the flash programming. If you use a different ARM programming tool it will work as well as long as it starts the connection with the ?\r\n synchronization sequence.

Note that multiple connections to port 23 can be made simultaneously. The esp-link will intermix characters received on all these connections onto the serial TX and it will broadcast incoming characters from the serial RX to all connections. Use with caution!

Debug log

The esp-link web UI can display the esp-link debug log (os_printf statements in the code). This is handy but sometimes not sufficient. Esp-link also prints the debug info to the UART where it is sometimes more convenient and sometimes less... For this reason three UART debug log modes are supported that can be set in the web UI (and the mode is saved in flash):

• auto: the UART log starts enabled at boot and disables itself when esp-link associates with an AP. It re-enables itself if the association is lost.
• off: the UART log is always off
• on: the UART log is always on

Note that even if the UART log is always off the bootloader prints to uart0 whenever the esp8266 comes out of reset. This cannot be disabled.

Outbound TCP connections

The attached micro-controller can open outbound TCP connections using a simple serial protocol. More info and sample code forthcoming...

Outbound HTTP REST requests

The V2 versions of esp-link support the espduino SLIP protocol that supports simple outbound HTTP REST requests. The SLIP protocol consists of commands with binary arguments sent from the attached microcontroller to the esp8266, which then performs the command and responds back. The responses back use a callback address in the attached microcontroller code, i.e., the command sent by the uC contains a callback address and the response from the esp8266 starts with that callback address. This enables asynchronous communication where esp-link can notify the uC when requests complete or when other actions happen, such as wifi connectivity status changes. Support for MQTT is forthcoming.

You can find a demo sketch in a fork of the espduino library at https://github.com/tve/espduino in the examples/demo folder.

Contact

If you find problems with esp-link, please create a github issue. If you have a question, please use the gitter chat link at the top of this page.