ESP-01S Wifi Interface

[Richard Gore]

Hello everyone!

I successfully installed the ESP-01S on my Altair Duino Pro.

I used the soldering on the led pins method.

Everything works great so far.

Unfortunately, like Chris, my altair.local domain name on my network doesn't work (not sure why as I have another device that uses this and it works perfectly)

I tried to find some documentation to figure out why this doesn't work, but no luck....

As an alternative, a static IP on my network would also be ok (I'm running my own DNS).

There doesn't seem to be an option in the web interface to configure that either.

Does anyone have an idea on how to accomplish either of those solutions?

Thanks

[Augusto Baffa]

Hi, 

Could u explain how to install it?

 I'd like to have wifi connection to my altairduino pro ;)

Best,

Augusto Baffa

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[J McNeely]

Chris did a couple of great videos on getting it connected - this is for the standard version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98CH5FY8pLI - This is for the pro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFo27CmqcBY&t=2s

I'm sure he would appreciate a subscribe and like, as well.

Best of luck!

[Richard Gore]

I found a few things to try in this thread:

https://groups.google.com/g/altair-duino/c/LWzCJSlRDXQ

I think I'll try the code modification for the mDNS and also use a static reservation for my altair in my router.

That should solve everything :)

And yes Augusto, I used Chris' excellent videos to install mine, worked flawlessly!

[Richard Gore]

I found out that the lines of code suggested in the previous thread were already in what I uploaded to my ESP-01S.

I also found out that it works on one of my windows machines, but not the other for some reason.

I created a static DHCP reservation in my router and added that to a name in my local DNS.

I'm a happy camper :)

[Augusto Baffa]

 Hi, 

  now I'm a proud and happy altair-duino pro owner with wifi support  \o/ ... and lucky 'cos "altair.local" is working.

  

   is it possible to access a telnet server "from" altair-duino?  

     I'm wondering if I can use the altair-duino as a terminal to access internet. It would be nice if we could have a repos to download programs.

 best, 

Augusto Baffa

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/altair-duino/2d6a362d-66d5-40be-bfdd-7309d0d989b5n%40googlegroups.com.

[da...@hansels.net]

Yes! The module (same firmware) can be used as a Hayes-compatible modem. See the "modem emulation" section here:

https://github.com/dhansel/WifiModem#modem-emulation-function

Also see my previous post here:

https://groups.google.com/g/altair-duino/c/LWzCJSlRDXQ/m/dgZVOCqlAgAJ

Note that the modem emulation only works if you are NOT currently connected to the module by Telnet.
That's because there is only one serial connection between the AD and the Wifi module so it can

only do one type of communication at a time.

David

[Augusto Baffa]

this is fantastic! Thank you so much!

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/altair-duino/a16357cd-d914-46ad-8cff-9443bc66bb19n%40googlegroups.com.

[Frank P.]

David, thanks again for the WiFiModem firmware. Yesterday I set up another ESP-01s module (it only makes sense to buy these in packs of 4 for $9.99) to connect to my SC131's second serial port and used the modem emulation function to call out from the SC131 to my AltairDuino. Not very practical due to all the level-conversion necessary, but an interesting experiment. See this retro-comp forum post for more details: SC131 calls AltairDuino over WiFi.

[Frank P.]

Interesting tidbit regarding the ESP-01 running the WiFiModem firmware...

On the configuration web page there is a setting called Show WiFi connection information. Even if this is set to Do not show, at power up the firmware always sends the following information out the serial port at 9600 baud (some of these messages may be different if you're using DHCP instead of a static IP configuration):

        *WM: [1] AutoConnect

        *WM: [2] Connecting as wifi client...
        *WM: [3] STA static IP: 192.168.1.122
        *WM: [2] Custom static IP/GW/Subnet/DNS
        *WM: [2] Custom STA IP/GW/Subnet
        *WM: [1] STA IP set: 192.168.1.122
        *WM: [1] Connecting to SAVED AP: FrankNet5
        *WM: [3] Using Password: xxxxxxxx
        *WM: [3] WiFi_enableSTA enable
        *WM: [3] enableSTA PERSISTENT ON
        *WM: [3] Mode after delay:  STA+AP
        *WM: [1] connectTimeout not set, ESP waitForConnectResult...

If Show WiFi connection information is set to Print to serial port after connecting, it additionally sends at 9600 baud:

        *WM: [2] Connection result: WL_CONNECTED
        *WM: [1] AutoConnect: SUCCESS
        *WM: [1] STA IP Address: 192.168.1.122

        Connected to network
        Listening on port 23 (telnet) at IP 192.168.1.122

And then the following information at the configured baud rate:
        Connected to network
        Listening on port 23 (telnet) at IP 192.168.1.122
        Press 's' to skip this information at future connects....

Finally, after it connects to the WiFi access point, it always sends the following information at the configured baud rate:

        *WM: [3] unloading

So the setting Show WiFi connection information only suppresses some of the connection information.

The AltairDuino, of course, doesn't give a hoot because nothing is listening to the serial port immediately after power up.

I noticed this on the SC131 which gets confused at power up because it comes up expecting user input at 115200 baud.

This is not a complaint, but just an observation. The AltairDuino is fine with this, and the SC131 has a reset button that puts everything right.

The un-suppressed messages appear to emanate from within the WiFi Manager package itself.

[fred_...@hotmail.com]

Looks like syslog() calls -- I have never worked with this system, but, it appears to support syslog

 https://gist.github.com/chaeplin/8f4b06aa2bd454232892
On linux, system is controlled by /etc/rsyslog.conf

[Frank P.]

David, quick question... I took a look at another ESP-01 firmware called ESP-LINK. It is inferior to WiFiModem in two respects - it doesn't implement a true Telnet server, so everything including the Telnet negotiation bytes gets passed through to the serial port - and it doesn't implement a modem emulation for outgoing connections. So it is basically just a simple WiFi-to-serial bridge (though it has a swiss army knife of other capabilities that are only useful if you're developing and uploading firmware to the target system.)

BUT, it has one useful capability - a tiny checkbox buried in its HTTP control interface - that allows the programmable pullup resistor on the RX line to be disconnected which reduces the current it's required to sink from a serial port (e.g.: the SC131) that already has a pullup resistor, but also has a protective series resistor.

Do you know of any way to make the WiFiModem firmware disconnect that RX pullup resistor? I've fiddled around with things like pinMode(3,INPUT) and an assortment of similar calls, but none helped the way the ESP-LINK did when I unchecked the pullup resistor on RX. I'm not looking for anything with a fancy interface, just a line or two I could patch in to the setup(). I've already patched in static IP, so I know I can do that.

On Wednesday, March 10, 2021 at 9:07:13 AM UTC-5 da...@hansels.net wrote:

[da...@hansels.net]

I haven't really done anything with the ESP since I wrote that software two years ago so I'm a bit

rusty on how it all works... I suspect that the pin gets set to INPUT_PULLUP mode whenever

Serial.begin() is called. So I suggest searching the code for "Serial.begin" and adding "pinMode(3,INPUT);"

after every instance. Unless you already tried that...

[Frank P.]

No I haven't David - I only tried putting it at the end of setup(), and that didn't work. I'll have a look. Thanks!

[Frank P.]

So David, your suggestion more or less worked. But neither pinMode(3,INPUT) nor even pinMode(3,INPUT_PULLUP) after each Serial.begin() worked; these calls somehow reset something that Serial.begin() did and the RX would not receive anything. Instead, I found that the correct incantation for each of those 3 places is: "PIN_PULLUP_DIS(PERIPHS_IO_MUX_U0RXD_U);" which is something I had tried before, but unsuccessfully because it wasn't in the right place(s).

Now either of the SC131 serial ports (with their 2.2K series resistors) can directly drive the ESP-01s RX pin (the ESP8266's tolerance for a 5V on an input pin is apparently an unadvertised special, just like the HC-05). So I only need to package together a 3.3V regulator with this ESP-01 to add a WiFi port to my SC131.

[Frank P.]

So yeah, with the no-pullup-resistor patch, the H/W did simplify quite a bit. See the second post in https://groups.google.com/g/retro-comp/c/cBRO-poQ5eA/m/fHDnLdwgAwAJ for a photo of the simplified H/W hookup.

[Frank P.]

So while I've been giving David the credit he deserves for developing the WiFiModem firmware, I've been remiss for not realizing until yesterday that Chris was responsible for adding the code that allows configuring the firmware over WiFi (the WiFiManager mod), in addition to the code supporting MDNS (exporting the altair.local hostname). So thank you also Chris.

[Chris Davis]

We'll keep it a secret that my contribution was probably 10 lines of code... :)

[Frank P.]

Well, it depends on how you count. You replaced about 93 lines with about 61 lines, so technically you contributed -32 lines