Program Directly - ESP8266 Module
You don't have to wire up a separate USB serial converter if you don't like or can't get access to the pins. Instead, you can use miniesptool which will run on a CircuitPlayground Express board.
The library to support the upload is adafruit_miniesptool and it is include in the latest Bundle or you can download adafruit_miniesptool from github and install it on your Express board in the root directory of you CIRCUITPY drive.
Also grab the firmware binaries esp8266/ folder from the ESP8266 Firmware Zip file in the Firmware files page, and copy it to the root directory of your CIRCUITPY drive
Note: in the screenshot below, adafruit_miniesptool.py in in the root directory -- If you are using it from the bundle and placed in /lib then you will not see it.
We'll be using a Feather M4 to demonstrate, M0 boards may not have enough memory! Wire up the ESP8266 module as shown:
- VBat from ESP8266 to VBat on Feather M4 (if your board doesn't have a Battery power pin, skip this)
- Vin from ESP8266 to VUSB on Feather M4 - use whatever 5V (no higher!) power source you have
- GND to GND
- ESP8266 Reset to D5 (you can use any pin)
- ESP8266 GPIO #0 to D6 (you can use any pin)
- ESP8266 RX to UART TX
- ESP8266 TX to UART RX
Note the UART pins are 'cross wired' - RX to TX
Save the following esp uploading example as miniiesptool_esp8266program.py
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 ladyada for Adafruit Industries
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
import time
import board
import busio
from digitalio import DigitalInOut
import adafruit_miniesptool
print("ESP8266 mini prog")
uart = busio.UART(board.TX, board.RX, baudrate=115200, timeout=1)
resetpin = DigitalInOut(board.D5)
gpio0pin = DigitalInOut(board.D6)
# On ESP8266 we will 'sync' to the baudrate in initialization
esptool = adafruit_miniesptool.miniesptool(
uart, gpio0pin, resetpin, flashsize=1024 * 1024, baudrate=256000
)
esptool.debug = False
esptool.sync()
print("Synced")
print(esptool.chip_name)
print("MAC ADDR: ", [hex(i) for i in esptool.mac_addr])
esptool.flash_file("esp8266/AT_firmware_1.6.2.0.bin", 0x0)
# 0x3FC000 esp_init_data_default_v05.bin
esptool.flash_file("esp8266/esp_init_data_default_v05.bin", 0x3FC000)
# 0x3FE000 blank.bin
esptool.flash_file("esp8266/blank.bin", 0x3FE000)
esptool.reset()
time.sleep(0.5)
Change the GPIO0 and Reset pin assignment if necessary.
Open up the serial connection and connect to the REPL then type:
import miniesptool_esp8266program
to start the uploading process, it will take a few minutes
When complete, you may delete the esp8266/ folder to free up space.
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