XTVTX ESP8266 Serial REPL picocom communication problem

All ESP8266 boards running MicroPython.
Official boards are the Adafruit Huzzah and Feather boards.
Target audience: MicroPython users with an ESP8266 board.
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Akrobate
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2022 8:04 pm

XTVTX ESP8266 Serial REPL picocom communication problem

Post by Akrobate » Thu Jun 02, 2022 8:36 pm

Hello every body,

I spent a lot of time to make work this stuff without any success. :?

https://www.amazon.fr/XTVTX-d%C3%A9velo ... 093GR7MJM/

My main problem is that I can't get a clean connection to the device after uploaded the firmware with the command:

Code: Select all

picocom /dev/ttyUSB0 -b115200
I get very various behaviours. Generaly the first time after flashing I get somethig like

Code: Select all

                              >>> 
                                   >>> 
                                       >>> 
                                           >>> 
                                               >>> 
                                                   >>> 
                                                       >>> 
                                                           >>> 
                                                               >>> 
                                                                   >>> 
Repeating forever

After when I quit picocom and restart it again I get this:

Code: Select all

(venv) home@home ~/projects/esptool $ picocom /dev/ttyUSB0 -b115200
picocom v2.2

port is        : /dev/ttyUSB0
flowcontrol    : none
baudrate is    : 115200
parity is      : none
databits are   : 8
stopbits are   : 1
escape is      : C-a
local echo is  : no
noinit is      : no
noreset is     : no
nolock is      : no
send_cmd is    : sz -vv
receive_cmd is : rz -vv -E
imap is        : 
omap is        : 
emap is        : crcrlf,delbs,

Type [C-a] [C-h] to see available commands

Terminal ready

>>> 
Seems like a REPL prompt command, but I can't write anything inside.

When I continue restart picocom again, I get nearly the same result, but without >>> anymore.

When I press reset, or I unplug and plug the device nothing special changes.


So what have been tryed:

Code: Select all

esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --baud 115200 write_flash -fm qout --flash_size=4MB 0 esp8266-20220117-v1.18.bin
Important: I flashed the device with all possible flash_modes qout, qio, dout, dio and ofcorse before each flash I erase fully the flash

I also tryed to let esptool to find alone the flash_size, no results

I tried also some other firmwares:

esp8266-1m-20220117-v1.18.bin
esp8266-20170108-v1.8.7.bin
esp8266-512k-20220117-v1.18.bin


I also tryed to install
picocom 3.1 and connect with... No results neither

I tried to connect to it with putty, No results

I tried to connect to it with screen command, No results

I have tryed on another board of the same serie, No results

I am working on ubuntu 18.04, and my python version is python3.6

The very best part is that on an other computer I tried to connect to it with the Arduino IDE, with the serial monitor, and this way it works "perfectly"

I was able to make an esp.check_fw() wich returned True.

Other interesting point, when this board is flashed I can see it's WiFi Access Point Microphython-xxxxx.

Mean the firmware is running nearly good... So where can be the problem? Any advices are very wellcome =)


some logs of erasing and flashing commands:

Code: Select all

(venv) home@home ~/projects/esptool $ esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 erase_flash
esptool.py v3.3.1
Serial port /dev/ttyUSB0
Connecting....
Detecting chip type... Unsupported detection protocol, switching and trying again...
Connecting....
Detecting chip type... ESP8266
Chip is ESP8266EX
Features: WiFi
Crystal is 26MHz
MAC: 40:91:51:52:ae:ea
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Erasing flash (this may take a while)...
Chip erase completed successfully in 17.9s
Hard resetting via RTS pin...

Code: Select all

(venv) home@home ~/projects/esptool $ esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --baud 115200 write_flash -fm dio --flash_size=4MB 0 esp8266-20220117-v1.18.bin
esptool.py v3.3.1
Serial port /dev/ttyUSB0
Connecting....
Detecting chip type... Unsupported detection protocol, switching and trying again...
Connecting....
Detecting chip type... ESP8266
Chip is ESP8266EX
Features: WiFi
Crystal is 26MHz
MAC: 40:91:51:52:ae:ea
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Configuring flash size...
Flash will be erased from 0x00000000 to 0x0009bfff...
Flash params set to 0x0240
Compressed 635992 bytes to 418428...
Wrote 635992 bytes (418428 compressed) at 0x00000000 in 37.1 seconds (effective 137.0 kbit/s)...
Hash of data verified.

Leaving...
Hard resetting via RTS pin...
Thank you very much for reading

Akrobate
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2022 8:04 pm

Re: XTVTX ESP8266 Serial REPL picocom communication problem

Post by Akrobate » Sat Jun 04, 2022 12:02 pm

Hello,

I solved my problem:
This cards are not compatible with MicroPython. More clearly they are, but components on this board are to low cost and the UART is not stable enough.

I bough a nearly same card from AZ Delivry, and this time no problems at all. All worked perfecty.

So conclusion:

This one:
https://www.amazon.fr/AZDelivery-Module ... RXGHY?th=1 <= OK works perfectly

This one:
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B093GR7MJM <= Noooooooo


Thank you for reading, hope this feedback can help someone =)

User avatar
scruss
Posts: 360
Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2017 2:27 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada
Contact:

Re: XTVTX ESP8266 Serial REPL picocom communication problem

Post by scruss » Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:44 pm

There are some bad clone cards out there.

Best to buy direct from the manufacturer and original developer, Lolin: https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/32529101036.html

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