Board-customization

[El Smiedro]

  Hello everyone,

I would like to customize the board of the BBB to add a wifi module (f.e. the esp8622). Did someone know a little tutorial or could give a little advice how to do that?
Thanks very much for your help.

best regards
Eric

[TJF]

Hi Eric!

I guess you mean ESP8266. You'll not need to customize the BBB. Just connect an Esp module to the BBB headers and use a serial port for communication. The pins depend on the serial port in use. I recommend UART-4. The following commands work on a 'bone' kernel supporting the capemgr:

Activate and initiate the serial port by

sudo su
echo BB-UART4 > /sys/devices/platform/bone_capemgr/slots
exit
stty -F /dev/ttyS4 115200 raw -echo

Wire the module

•     ESP GND -> BBB P9_01 (ground)
•     ESP VDD -> BBB P9_03 (3V3)
•     ESP EN  -> BBB P9_03 (3V3, only some modules like Esp-12e)
•     ESP TXD -> BBB P9_11 (UART-4 RX)
•     ESP RXD -> BBB P9_13 (UART-4 TX)

Then you can send data to the Esp
   

echo $'AT\r' > /dev/ttyS4

And receive data by
   

cat /dev/ttyS4

It's more convenient to use tools like nodempu-uploader.py to communicate (option -terminal) or load files to the Esp file system.

To upload firmware use esptool.py.

Good luck!