AT firmware

Posted by: @douwebakker

I have a few pieces of ESP8266-1 that don't have AT firmware on them.

Does that happen more often?

Douwe
 

What is AT firmware?

That is firmware that is normally standard on every ESP8266.
See https://www.espressif.com/en/support/download/at
 

@douwebakker Sorry, never heard of it, never had a problem. You might want to consider that you messed up your environment before by doing something you should not have so just maybe you are about to do the same again? Why not ry loading a very simple 8266 sketch and see what happens. If it works then you don't need any firmware.

@zander,  It has nothing to do with the previous IDE issues. Everything works as it should. I'm just curious how things work. Normally you can give AT commands via the serial monitor and the ESP answers back. For example, command "AT" returns "OK". And so the comaand "AT+RST" restarts the ESP8266.

@douwebakker Previous IDE issues???? NO, if you are referring to your issue with WiFiManager, that was caused by you doing something wrong. For instance, I saw in your library a copy of the ESP32 CORE code from github, why do you have that. I would ask that of even an expert and you are a decade at least from that point.

That is hilarious if it's true, because that is how we controlled the Hayes modems back in the 80's. 

@douwebakker I decided to experiment with the AT command. I used 2 ESP8266 boards, one of them when plugged in and sent AT did respond with a blank line and then ERROR. After that neither board ever responded to AT again. I tried loading the blink sketch, the null sketch (basics) and a sketch with just a Serial.begin to assure the baud rate.

If there is pre-loaded firmware then it only responded in one of 8 test cases. Since I have no clue how to change the firmware the conditions to get the AT command to 'work' must be very specific. Perhaps you will volunteer to tell us how to get any esp8266 to always respond to an AT command. That explanation must include at a minimum what sketch to upload and what baud rate to select on the serial port monitor.

I look forward to your assistance.

Hi @douwebakker,

   I haven't any ESP8266s and I haven't noticed any comments on the web suggesting it is a common problem. I also haven't worked on this subject. I did a little Googling a while back...so this is only rough impression of what I found .. there may be misunderstandings on my part.

The Arduino boards generally have a 'permanent' program, which can be on a second processor on the card, or it can be in a 'reserved' part of the main (and only) processor's memory. This program provides the means for the Arduino IDE to converse with the Arduino card, for operations including downloading the user program.

It should be noted this 'permanent' program is probably only protected by software, so things like a corrupt download may be able to overwrite it.

This program is normally untouched by the user program, and I have never needed to get involved with it, but I have seen discussions on the web suggesting that this 'permanent' program can occasionally be corrupted or wiped, effectively 'bricking' the card for normal Arduino downloads. ... at least until the program is restored, which typically involves a different configuration from the Arduino IDE one, and will also tend to change with the different cards.

I haven't looked at this protocol, but it may well be related to the AT command set documented by Espressif .. and I guess that was inspired, and clearly expanded, from the AT command set associated with Hayes Modems of more than 4 decades ago.

I imagine it is possible you have a bunch of cards in which this program was either never written at manufacture or has been corrupted since. The Espressif website has instructions about how to check it out and if necessary download the latest version. Of course, I have no idea how easy you will find this to do, or if the software is compatible with your cards, as it seems to indicate it is intended for a particular WROVER variant.

If you have a couple of USB serial cards, you may wish to try it out. Assuming the cards are otherwise useless, you have only your time to lose. But I doubt if there is anyone on the forum who has much 'hands on' experience with this particular issue.

Otherwise, given the low price of the cards, particularly when ordered direct from China, you might wish to procure some new ones... possibly going for the much higher performance ESP32 range if your application would benefit.

Good luck with your research, Dave

@zander, try putty, baud rate 115200

@davee , Thank you for your extensive answer. I'm trying to find as much information as possible about the ESP8266. Your contributions help with that.

@douwebakker I need more info than that. I know putty is some sort of term emulator, not sure if I have access to it but in any case hoe do I connect the esp8266 to the putty instance? The monitor is a send/receive function and it worked once. I am satisfied I have demonstrated that determining that the firmware is present or missing by using the serial port is unreliable. When I have some time I will see if there is a sketch that does that.

@zander, I'm not in my workspace at the moment, but I want to get back to it tomorrow. Possibly with a photo of the connections. Putty can be downloaded for free at www.putty.org

@douwebakker I am Mac. I have a telnet client and ssh but why do I even need it when the IDE has it built in, just click the icon top right.

@douwebakker Do you know about the nerds? and the espressif 8266 documentation websites.

https://arduino-esp8266.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html

Posted by: @zander

@douwebakker I am Mac. I have a telnet client and ssh but why do I even need it when the IDE has it built in, just click the icon top right.

Of course Ron, you are absolutely right. You can also do it in the IDE