HiLetgo 1PC ESP8266 NodeMCU CP2102 ESP-12E Development Board Open Source Serial Module Works Great for Arduino IDE/Micropython (Small)

Im not new to electronics, or devices like this. Ive set up a couple of Raspberry Pis, one as a robot brain, and one as a 3D print server, and also a new Arduino board. I followed the instructions on the product page, but wasnt able to connect to the device using the Arduino IDE. I think the main missing piece was to install the drivers from silabs.com (for Win 10, 64 bit). I also think the cable quality and connection may have been a factor. Even after getting it working once, I would lose the ability to connect to it. Im not sure Ive totally figured it out. By contrast, I got an Elegoo Arduino Mega on the same day, and had none of these flaky issues. But I just ran several tests in a row, using the built-in example Sketches, and things seem stable. The most I got working was the WifiClient that retrieves quotes from a remote server, and lists them on the Serial Monitor. It was exciting to see this little thing talking to the world. I highly recommend HiLetgo do their OWN testing, figure out what works, and then list definitive questions and answers for new uses like myself. There are several companies out there that make these, all nearly the same price, so helping users get them up and running easily could be a differentiator.

Works great with the Blynk app. Very simple to set up with some tutorials I found on Google. I could control the pin outputs from my phone to turn on LEDs. You program it to connect to your wifi and you can still activate the pins while off your own network. That is pretty cool for how easy it was to set up. My only problem is I dont know what to make with it. I bought it just to test it and play with it. I need to think of a practical use for it now.

Simple setup, no issues uploading from the Arduino IDE (OTA works too). I have one of these connected to an AM2302, sending the sensor data to ThingSpeak IoT service (free), and getting the API data on widgets and alerts on my phone. (Greenhouse Environment Monitoring) Note: you will have to pay attention to board pinout diagrams, as the identifiers on the PCB are not the same as what is needed for GPIO. Also, there arent many GPIO pins and most of them have multiple uses and I think theres only (1) analog pin. Overall, this was a surprisingly good purchase (Ive had issues with other wifi enabled boards) and plan on ordering a few additional dev boards for a more complex network of sensors and controls.

Opened it up, plugged it in and it worked.

I didn’t understand how this works. No clear instructions on what and how to do things. I still haven’t been able to use it.

exelent

great for little projects

I ordered 2 of these a couple months ago, and they were (and still are) awesome; programmed with the Arduino IDE port from Linux without issue, and are installed in production as WiFi garage door remote controls. If Id only ordered these, Id have given a 5-star review. I recently ordered a couple more as spares and for further development work. These had problems, hence the much lower review. Problems were: * Devices did not respond to programming. I observed bad soldering on the CP2102 chip; pins were bridged. * One of the two boards was missing the reset button. * The headers were installed at a bit of an angle.

I was having problems getting serial output to work. It was just giving me garbage output. After contacting the seller, they suggested that I reflash the board and change some settings, which I did, and then serial output was fine. You can get the reflash by searching Gitbub for nodemcu-flasher. After reflash, make sure your IDE settings under the Tools menu are as follows: Board -> NodeMCU 1.0 (ESP-12E Module), Flash Size -> 4M (3M SPIFFS), CPU Frequency -> 80 Mhz, Upload Speed -> 921600. In your code and serial monitor, make sure to set them to the same speed.

this is my first time experimenting with the esp8266 module i ordered various esp8266-12E modules from HiLetgo took one month and half to arrive at my doorstep from China but then again i live in Colombia the parts arrived in perfect condition and sealed airtight in an antistatic bag all of the modules worked the only thing i needed was to figure out how to flash them actually its not so hard to figure it out, linux has support build in for the serial usb UART bridge controller (Ubuntu) windows needs the driver installed -> download here: https://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx to make things easy and not overly complicated i flashed the binary image from Nodemcu on linux plug in the module and execute the following commands as root or sudo # dmesg | grep cp210* the above will output the location where your module can be found, in my case /dev/ttyUSB0 (see my attached screenshot) then copy the binary image of your rom in the esptool directory and execute the following to start flashing (make sure you change /dev/ttyUSB0 to whatever is your location !): # python ./esptool.py --port=/dev/ttyUSB0 write_flash -fm=dio -fs=32m 0x00000 nodemcu_integer_0.9.6-dev_20150704.bin after you can use esplorer on 9600 baud on windows to connect and program also tip, the module has a 5 volt output in my case i can power directly pir sensors from the GND+VIN pins next to the reset button just make sure you put a resistor between the output to your gpio pins btw the module is small, very small i didnt expect that (size of my thumb) EDIT: important ! just found out 1 module was spitting out garbage in the serial at random times turns out the TTL chip is badly soldered, by applying pressure it is temporarly fixed also these modules behave very bad with nodemcu 0.9.6 and even worse with 1.4.0 nodemcu 0.9.6 -> plenty disconnects and all methods to discover them dont work nodemcu 1.4.0 -> wifi is stable but outgoing tcp connections is broken (also in the dev version) and for some reason compiling the nodemcu yourself spits out faulty binaries for this model i suggest for stability to use arduino ide and sketches make sure you include in your setup() Serial.begin(9600); else after flashing your module will just crash and reboot all the time my expierience with nodemcu both versions: - badly maintained - to many bugs to be reliable (random disconnects, reboots, hangs, values in scripts not incrementing, if/then/else cases not executing correctly etc...) - no support (forums are flooded with problems but no answers) arduino ide is well maintained and has plenty libraries for all your projects, easy to use and less headbanging against the wall just for your information, arduino ide has gpio pins different then nodemcu on nodemcu for example header pins D1 & D2 are GPIO1 & GPIO2 but one arduino ide D1, & D2 are GPIO5 & GPIO4 and D7 the RX pin is GPIO13 so its a bit searching since there is no info or map layout to be found im still waiting a few parts to finish but ive already got it working so far and much more faster and stable with arduino ide since the code is written in C, the footprint is less bigger and much faster then lua on nodemcu so ive rebuild my daughters lamp on her nightstand and ive removed all its guts including the 110volt bulb in the base ive fitted a pir sensor connected with the esp8266-12e module powered by usb instead of the 110 volt bulb ive replaced it with a 5 volt led from an old battery lantern it took me half an hour to re-write the code i made in lua script to C++ the pir sensor turns on the light in the lamp and also sends a http get request to another receiver in our bedroom witch turns on a led light for now, im still waiting some parts to encase it in a nice box and also an lcd display to show the termperature in her room and a buzzer a sensor that i would add later on when my daughter gets out of bed in the middle of the night a buzzer will sound and a light will show in our room that shes awake and out of bed the problem with nodemcu with my project was that lua script is really unstable and slow also wifi is very unstable and disconnects frequently and methods to keep track on disconnects do not work unless you come up with something like a ping/pong method (if no answer received -> reconnect to wifi) and also the reaction is very slow from the moment pir detects movement to the moment the other esp module receives an alert with arduino ide this lag is completly gone ! bootup is almost instant from the moment you plug it in it is reporting movement after 2 seconds with nodemcu this takes sometimes up to 1 minute ive also not gotten a disconnect on wifi in 24 hours, where nodemcu requiered to reconnect over 73 times in 24 hours (0.9.6 and 1.4.0)