Programming ESP8266 with GCC

Mikhail Grigorev has prepared Unofficial Development Kit for Espressif ESP8266 based on GCC for Xtensa core and SDK from Espressif. While recommended setup with Eclipse seems quite heavy to me same SDK can be used with Code::Blocks IDE.

Setup:

ESP8266 with Code::Blocks

"Generic" Code::Blocks project - with simplest ESP8266 projects from SDK it would be enough to copy it to example project directory: ESP8266.cbp (with more complicated: adding source files to project and adding additional targets if they exist in makefile).

Examples with projects "ported" to Code::Blocks

blinky: toggles LED connected to PORT2
Be aware that there are minor incompatibilities between SDK/DevKit versions that may result in build error when rebuilding with newer DevKit than tested. Here is "blinky" updated to work with SDK 2.0.9: blinky_sdk_2_0_9.zip.
sysinfo: prints basic OS info
Sysinfo UART output:
sysinfo example terminal output
BMP180 - very cheap digital atmospheric pressure (and temperature) sensor, successor of BMP085. Working with similar to ESP8266 voltage range (1.8V-3.6V), connected with I2C. DIP-ready modules with MIC5205 voltage regulator and pull-up resistors are priced at ~$1.50.

i2c_bmp180.7z: prints temperature and pressure from BMP180 sensor
i2c_bmp180_ck.7z: same application but with makefile swapped from another project. This makefile is using esptool-ck for flashing and using additional UART converter lines to control ESP8266 reset and GPIO0 (RTS controls RESET or CH_PD, DTR controls GPIO0) thus allowing automatical switching to bootloader mode when starting programming.
Cheap UART converters based on FT232RL (or quite probably its clone) seem to be good choice for programming interface as they have switchable UART voltage levels (5V, 3.3V needed for ESP8266, even more with external regulators) and all FTDI pins broken out.
Note: if you have to use 5V UART connect ESP8266 TX directly to UART RX and connect UART TX to EXP8266 using voltage diviver - 2k2 resistor in series and 4k7 to GND seem to do the job.
FTDI232RL-based UART converter

BMP180 + HTTP client

bmp180_httpclient.7z
Simple application that is reading periodically temperature and atmospheric pressure with BMP180 sensor and posts it to HTTP server. Example php script that can be used for test purposes (dumping received data with timestamps into text file):

	<?php
		$s=$_POST['s'];
		$dest='temp.txt';
		$fp = fopen($dest, "a", 0); #open for writing, append mode
		fprintf($fp, "%s    %s\r\n", strftime("%Y%m%d %H:%M:%S",time()), $s);
		fclose($fp);
	?>

Configuration (user_config.h) needed: WiFi network name and password, http host and script name. As you can see above passed POST parameter is named "s".

Compiling and linking with another SDK version may require minor changes. Changing from DevKit 2.0.4 to 2.0.6 (that is to SDK 1.1.1) required adding function linked from libmain.a:

	void user_rf_pre_init(void)
	{
		// system_phy_set_rfoption() can be called from here
	}
bmp180_httpclient_SDK_1_1_1.7z

BMP180 + Si7021 + HTTP client

Yet another iteration of my "web thermometer" project. Definitely cheapest and easiest to assemble so far, but also easiest to write software for - ESP8266 SDK is easier to setup than e.g. MPLAB+C18 and there are tons of examples of ESP8266 usage for similar purposes.
Si7021 is a cheap and popular temperature and humidity sensor, compatible with SHT21. Mini-modules are available for under $4:
Si7021 module Si7021 module - back
Schematic:
ESP8266 + BMP180 + Si7021
bmp180_si7021_httpclient.pdf
Source code:
bmp180_si7021_httpclient.7z (tested with Espressif-ESP8266-DevKit-v2.0.6-x86.exe).
bmp180_si7021_httpclient_20151125.zip: fixed invalid string generated for negative temperatures (tested with DevKit 2.0.8)

ADC

ADC pin (TOUT, pin #6) is not directly available on ESP01 module (unlike the ESP07 or ESP12), but with some care piece of kynar wire can be soldered directly to the chip.
Example is updated to work with DevKit 2.0.8:

With DevKit 2.0.9 adding crypto to linked libraries list in makefile is required. ADC_test.zip
For test purposes I've modified bus_pirate.dll miniscope plugin to capture ADC data continuously from serial port. Quite significant ADC measurement disturbances are visible in resulting plots:
ESP8266 miniscope
ADC_test_scope.zip
esp8266_dll.zip

See also: VoIP/RTP pager


 "Cookie monsters": 7702312    Parse time: 0.001 s