{"id":1678,"date":"2017-09-03T08:42:53","date_gmt":"2017-09-03T13:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/?p=1678"},"modified":"2019-05-26T10:53:35","modified_gmt":"2019-05-26T15:53:35","slug":"iot-experimenter-esp8266-dev-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/2017\/09\/03\/iot-experimenter-esp8266-dev-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing the IoT Experimenter ESP8266 Development Board"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many other hardware hackers, I fell in love with the ESP8266 Wi-Fi microcontroller as soon as I started using it. It is fast, has plenty of memory, has Wi-Fi networking, and can be programmed in a number of ways. Lots of people like the Lua firmware, but I prefer to use the ESP8266 core for Arduino<\/a> because I can use all the great libraries already built for Arduino. <\/p>\n

I’m also working with LoRa radio technology. Several small Arduino-based boards are available for experimenting with LoRa: Moteino<\/a> and Anarduino MiniWireless<\/a> have LoRa capable boards that are easy to use. They both have the standard 6-pin serial connection for easy programming. What I really wanted to do is combine long range radio technology with Wi-Fi connectivity, so I designed an ESP8266 Development board that allows for easy connection of a LoRa radio module. While I was at it, I also included connectivity for an OLED display, ArduCAM camera module, and included a nice big PL9823 RGB LED that can be controlled just like WS2812 LEDs.
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IoT Experimenter ESP8266 development board<\/p><\/div>
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There’s also connection for analog input with a voltage divider to scale voltage down to the 1V ranged required by the ESP8266. The board has 2 voltage regulators: a 3.3V one for the ESP8266, and a 5V regulator for powering the RGB LED and to provide power to the radio module header. If you are wondering how I drive a 5V LED with 3.3V logic from the ESP, a diode in line with the LED’s power supply drops the VCC low enough for 3.3V logic to work reliably. I learned that clever trick from this Hackaday article<\/a>. If you want to connect a strip of WS2812 LEDs, there are pads for that, too.<\/p>\n

The TX\/RX serial lines for the radio module and ESP8266 are connected together for simple serial communication. This makes it easy to build a simple radio to Internet gateway. See my project Solar-Powered LoRa Weather Station<\/a> for a good example of this approach. Also, this header can be used for any kind of radio (not just LoRa) that has a 6-pin header with the standard FTDI pinout. In fact, it doesn’t have to be a radio at all! Communication with any serial device might be just what you need.
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Radio module attached to IoT Experimenter<\/p><\/div>
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The ArduCAM camera module for Arduino works great with the ESP8266 (here is the library<\/a>) so I can make surveillance cameras with this board. The 8-pin female header for the camera is on the underside of the board and the camera fits great right on top of the board.
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ArduCAM module attached to IoT Experimenter<\/p><\/div>
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I also love those cheap I2C OLED displays. They come in several colors and are only a few dollars. So I added a header for that also. It’s great for debugging, and when you are done, just pull the display off.
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OLED display attached to IoT Experimenter<\/p><\/div>
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The PL9823 RGB LED can be controlled using any WS2812 library, like the Adafruit NeoPixel library. This big 8mm LED looks great. Make it any color you want!
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RGB LED<\/p><\/div>
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This board has proven really useful for me in several projects, and I’m probably going to offer it as a product. Hope you like it, and if you are interested, let me know<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like many other hardware hackers, I fell in love with the ESP8266 Wi-Fi microcontroller as soon as I started using it. It is fast, has plenty of memory, has Wi-Fi networking, and can be programmed in a number of ways. Lots of people like the Lua firmware, but I prefer to use the ESP8266 core […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,31,30,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arduino","category-esp8266","category-iot","category-lora"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1678"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2273,"href":"https:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678\/revisions\/2273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nootropicdesign.com\/projectlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}