Yup one of these for general tinkering... Node MCU development board, and you shouldn't be paying more than around $4 US for them including shipping (usually free from China) Get a few of them, and you can do some interactive stuff as you learn what they're all about I like these as the price is good for what you get, all the peripheral stuff you'd need is on board, just plug in a USB and you're good to go. The arduino shield versions just of late have turned out to be unreliable, and in fact it wouldn't cost a lot to make a proto shield based around one of these. I've got them from these guys in the past, note that the Chinese NY is still on until Feb 6. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NodeMcu-L...591472?hash=item3f56f142b0:g:Z5IAAOSwmfhX4QIm
Mark, I can vouch for the reliability and ease in using these modules. Steve (UK Steve) was instrumental in walking me through the learning cycle with these and I am using them extensively in throttle design and other applications. Steve F
OK, cool. Thanks guys. I have two of these on the way. I happen to have a couple of proto shields that they should mount to fairly easily. They won't be here till some time in March, but the two boards shipped were cheaper than the shipping alone on the SparkFun board I was eyeing. Hopefully this will be the end of my Ethernet woes!
No more Ethernet woes for sure. You might be luckier with the shipping, usually around 2 weeks making 3rd week of Feb with the NY delay. On the proto shield, I would install a couple of rows of female headers so you have the flexibility of removal/swapout. Then you just need to connect Vin to arduino 5v. Gnd to Gnd. TX RX pair and you're done. The ESP is a 3.3v device but the dev board has the regulator for power supply so you can feed it with 5v. And just recently it was announced that they are 5v logic tolerant so no level shifting required on the serial, simples Essentially, other than 4 jumpers a proto shield needs no other electronic components when using NodeMCU dev. Get back to me when they arrive.
Steve, do you know if the 5v logic tolerance applies to all ESP8266s - or just the latest versions? Thanks, Jim
it certainly does not apply to all. You would be best to check the board you are going to use to confirm. I can confirm the boards I have are 3.3v only, they are of the 01 variety (1/2" x 1" pcb with 8pin header, no sd card, etc).
Hey Jim Well your mileage may vary, but I'm going with all, I've been using without level shifting for months now anyways. If you google 'esp8266 5v tolerant?' you'll find the articles that started the whole debate. Start with the roots on Hackaday. Of course it's up to you at the end of the day, but I've yet to toast any of mine, they are all the later 12 series. Don't put 5v on Vcc though, that is not what the announcement said! Steve.
When the lights are dark the board is bad...I got a genuine ethernet shield and it was bad...so I went and got an Arduino with built in ethernet....I am dying to try the built in wifi arduino
Scott, Is this the Uno-Wifi you ordered? http://www.ebay.com/itm/UNO-WiFi-R3...388224?hash=item33c26f06c0:g:klkAAOSwnbZYHbmp Looking forward to a DCC++ Base Station Wifi Server sometime in the future...
GOOD NEWS (and some not-so-good)! I got the 51Ω R-pack in today and reworked my Ethernet shield. With the UNO, I can now get a DHCP address from my router! Unfortunately, when I move the shield over to my MEGA, it hangs even with the DHCPAddressPrinter sketch, which means I can't test it with the DCC++ code. So, I'm going to make a custom sketch that has just my WiThrottle code and the SerialCommand class, and try to run it on the UNO to debug that part. If that works, it SHOULD work with the full DCC++ system, since all it does is insert an alternate input parser on SerialCommand. Fingers crossed, I'm FINALLY making some progress.
*sigh* Well, I'm halfway there. As I mentioned, the W5100 board now works just fine with my UNO. I even have WiThrottle on my iPhone talking to a stripped down (interface only no guts) version of DCC++ Base Station, just like I was hoping. Try to run the DHCPAddressPrinter Example on my Mega. No dice. IP=0.0.0.0. I've tried a bunch of stuff, disabling the SD card, enabling pin 10, setting pin 53 to output, continuity-checking the ICSP pin headers. I've posted asking for help on the Arduino forums. If this turns out to be a failed Mega board I may cry, and I don't do that often. If I can't get the Mega running, I can't test out the WiThrottle code with a full implementation of DCC++. Very frustrating.
An UPDATE: I got a new Arduino Mega, and the new one works just fine with the Ethernet shield. I don't (yet) know what was wrong with the old one, but it appears this whole mess was a combination of the wrong series resistors pack on the shield and a bad Arduino. Anyway, I'm off to the races with my project now, so thank you all for your support and suggestions!
I've been having a frustrating time trying to get a ESP-12E module working, so that it can operate as a serial-WiFi bridge for the Mega running DCC++. Having spent too many hours failing to get it to respond to AT commands (although I can read the boot info fine), I've bought a D1 module with built-in USB programming port. I suspect my issues are to do with using a Mac, via an Arduino Mega, to try to connect. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Because it only has one port, USB C, so there are various stages of conversion/interfaces between the Mac and the module. Some cables are known for causing issues, adhering to various bits of the standards but not all. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I bought one the other day. I think it's got an ESP8266 on board to do the wifi...would be good to see DCC++ updated for this board.
LOL that's kind of funny... the Mega I've had so much trouble with that started this thread is an official Arduino board. In fact, I've got TWO dead official Megas... the other one has either fried its USB interface chip or lost its bootloader, I'm not sure which. I can't communicate with it or program it. It's on the backburner to eventually diagnose and maybe repair.
That has been my experience...as I tried knock offs and have had to fix the knock offs more than the genuines...too each his own I guess...bad runs are in every batch
