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<a href=/index.xml target=_blank class=hob>RSS</a></nav></header><main role=main><article itemtype=http://schema.org/Article><h1 itemtype=headline>Getting started with MicroPython and ESP8266</h1><p><cap>post</cap>, Sep 6, 2020 on <a href=https://mitjafelicijan.com>Mitja Felicijan's blog</a><div><h2 id=introduction>Introduction</h2><p>A while ago I bought some
<a href=https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp8266>ESP8266</a> and
<a href=https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp32>ESP32</a> dev boards to play
around with and I finally found a project to try it out.<p>For my project, I used <a href=https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp32>ESP32</a>
but I could easily choose
<a href=https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp8266>ESP8266</a>. This guide
contains which tools I use and how I prepared my workspace to code for
<a href=https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp8266>ESP8266</a>.<figure><img loading="lazy" src=/posts/esp8366-micropython/boards.jpg alt="ESP8266 and ESP32 boards"></figure><p>This guide covers:<ul><li>flashing SOC<li>install proper tooling<li>deploying a simple script</ul><blockquote><p>Make sure that you are using <strong>a good USB cable</strong>. I had some problems with
mine and once I replaced it everything started to work.</blockquote><h2 id=flashing-the-soc>Flashing the SOC</h2><p>Plug your ESP8266 to USB port and check if the device was recognized with
executing <code>dmesg | grep ch341-uart</code>.<p>Then check if the device is available under <code>/dev/</code> by running <code>ls /dev/ttyUSB*</code>.<blockquote><p><strong>Linux users</strong>: if a device is not available be sure you are in <code>dialout</code>
group. You can check this by executing <code>groups $USER</code>. You can add a user to
<code>dialout</code> group with <code>sudo adduser $USER dialout</code>.</blockquote><p>After these conditions are meet go to the navigate to
<a href=https://micropython.org/download/esp8266/>https://micropython.org/download/esp8266/</a>
and download <code>esp8266-20200902-v1.13.bin</code>.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span>mkdir esp8266-test
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>cd esp8266-test
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>wget https://micropython.org/resources/firmware/esp8266-20200902-v1.13.bin
</span></span></code></pre><p>After obtaining firmware we will need some tooling to flash the firmware to the
board.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span>sudo pip3 install esptool
</span></span></code></pre><p>You can read more about <code>esptool</code> at
<a href=https://github.com/espressif/esptool/>https://github.com/espressif/esptool/</a>.<p>Before flashing the firmware we need to erase the flash on device. Substitute
<code>USB0</code> with the device listed in output of <code>ls /dev/ttyUSB*</code>.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span>esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 erase_flash
</span></span></code></pre><p>If flash was successfully erased it is now time to flash the new firmware to it.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span>esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --baud 460800 write_flash --flash_size=detect 0 esp8266-20200902-v1.13.bin
</span></span></code></pre><p>If everything went ok you can try accessing MicroPython REPL with <code>screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200</code> or <code>picocom /dev/ttyUSB0 -b115200</code>.<blockquote><p>Sometimes you will need to press <code>ENTER</code> in <code>screen</code> or <code>picocom</code> to access
REPL.</blockquote><p>When you are in REPL you can test if all is working properly following steps.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span>&gt; <span style=color:#00f>import</span> machine
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>&gt; machine.freq()
</span></span></code></pre><p>This should output a number representing a frequency of the CPU (mine was
<code>80000000</code>).<p>When you are in <code>screen</code> or <code>picocom</code> these can help you a bit.<table><thead><tr><th>Key<th>Command<tbody><tr><td>CTRL+d<td>preforms soft reboot<tr><td>CTRL+a x<td>exits picocom<tr><td>CTRL+a \<td>exits screen</table><h2 id=install-better-tooling>Install better tooling</h2><p>Now, to make our lives a little bit easier there are couple of additional tools
that will make this whole experience a little more bearable.<p>There are twq cool ways of uploading local files to SOC flash.<ul><li>ampy → <a href=https://github.com/scientifichackers/ampy>https://github.com/scientifichackers/ampy</a><li>rshell → <a href=https://github.com/dhylands/rshell>https://github.com/dhylands/rshell</a></ul><h3 id=ampy>ampy</h3><pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:green># installing ampy</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>sudo pip3 install adafruit-ampy
</span></span></code></pre><p>Listed below are some common commands I used.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:green># uploads file to flash</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>ampy --delay 2 --port /dev/ttyUSB0 put boot.py
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:green># lists file on flash</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>ampy --delay 2 --port /dev/ttyUSB0 ls
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:green># outputs contents of file on flash</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>ampy --delay 2 --port /dev/ttyUSB0 cat boot.py
</span></span></code></pre><blockquote><p>I added <code>delay</code> of 2 seconds because I had problems with executing commands.</blockquote><h3 id=rshell>rshell</h3><p>Even though <code>ampy</code> is a cool tool I opted with <code>rshell</code> in the end since it's
much more polished and feature rich.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:green># installing ampy</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>sudo pip3 install rshell
</span></span></code></pre><p>Now that <code>rshell</code> is installed we can connect to the board.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span>rshell --buffer-size=30 -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -a
</span></span></code></pre><p>This will open a shell inside bash and from here you can execute multiple
commands. You can check what is supported with <code>help</code> once you are inside of a
shell.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span>m@turing ~/Junk/esp8266-test
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>$ rshell --buffer-size=30 -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -a
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>Using buffer-size of 30
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>Connecting to /dev/ttyUSB0 (buffer-size 30)...
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>Trying to connect to REPL  connected
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>Testing <span style=color:#00f>if</span> ubinascii.unhexlify exists ... Y
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>Retrieving root directories ... /boot.py/
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>Setting time ... Sep 06, 2020 23:54:28
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>Evaluating board_name ... pyboard
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>Retrieving time epoch ... Jan 01, 2000
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>Welcome to rshell. Use Control-D (or the exit command) to exit rshell.
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>/home/m/Junk/esp8266-test&gt; help
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>Documented commands (type help &lt;topic&gt;):
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>========================================
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>args    cat  connect  date  edit  filesize  help  mkdir  rm     shell
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>boards  cd   cp       echo  exit  filetype  ls    repl   rsync
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>Use Control-D (or the exit command) to exit rshell.
</span></span></code></pre><blockquote><p>Inside a shell <code>ls</code> will display list of files on your machine. To get list
of files on flash folder <code>/pyboard</code> is remapped inside the shell. To list files
on flash you must perform <code>ls /pyboard</code>.</blockquote><h4 id=moving-files-to-flash>Moving files to flash</h4><p>To avoid copying files all the time I used <code>rsync</code> function from the inside of
<code>rshell</code>.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span>rsync . /pyboard
</span></span></code></pre><h4 id=executing-scripts>Executing scripts</h4><p>It is a pain to continuously reboot the device to trigger <code>/pyboard/boot.py</code> and
there is a better way of testing local scripts on remote device.<p>Lets assume we have <code>src/freq.py</code> file that displays CPU frequency of a remote
device.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:green># src/freq.py</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:#00f>import</span> machine
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>print(machine.freq())
</span></span></code></pre><p>Now lets upload this and execute it.<pre tabindex=0 style=background-color:#fff><code><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:green># syncs files to remove device</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>rsync ./src /pyboard
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:green># goes into REPL</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>repl
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:green># we import file by importing it without .py extension and this will run the script</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>&gt; import freq
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:green># CTRL+x will exit REPL</span>
</span></span></code></pre><h2 id=additional-resources>Additional resources</h2><ul><li><a href=https://randomnerdtutorials.com/getting-started-micropython-esp32-esp8266/>https://randomnerdtutorials.com/getting-started-micropython-esp32-esp8266/</a><li><a href=http://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/esp8266/quickref.html>http://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/esp8266/quickref.html</a></ul></div></article></main><section><hr><h2>Posts from blogs I follow around the net</h2><ul><li><a href=https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/linux/NFSv4ServerLockClients target=_blank rel=noopener>Finding which NFSv4 client owns a lock on a Linux NFS(v4) server</a> — <a href=https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/>Chris's Wiki :: blog</a><div>A while back I wrote an entry about finding which NFS client owns
a lock on a Linux NFS server, which turned
out to be specific to NFS v3 (which I really should have seen coming,
since it involved NLM and lockd). Finding the NFS v4 client that
owns a lock is, depending on your perspective, either simpl…<li><a href=http://www.landley.net/notes-2023.html#28-10-2023 target=_blank rel=noopener>October 28, 2023</a> — <a href=http://www.landley.net/notes-2023.html>Rob Landley's Blog Thing for 2023</a><div>Oh good grief, two of my least favorite licensing people, Larry Rosen
and Bradley Kuhn, are interacting on the OSI's license-discuss
list where the're doing
bad computer history and insisting that a guy Larry Rosen
coincidentally interviewed for a book years ago is clearly the origin of
somethin…<li><a href="http://offbeatpursuit.com:80/blog/?id=25" target=_blank rel=noopener>A fix by any other name</a> — <a href=http://offbeatpursuit.com:80/blog/>WLOG - blog</a><div>tags:
i2c, plan9
Another month, another file system.
Well, if you can’t fix it in software, fix it in hardware (looking at
you, bme680, we’re not
done yet). The show must go on, as they say, and I would like my
experiments to go on.
So a “new” addition to the environmental sensor family connected to
the h…<li><a href=https://mirzapandzo.com/next-image-url-parameter-is-valid-but-upstream-response-is-invalid target=_blank rel=noopener>Next/Image "url" parameter is valid but upstream response is invalid</a> — <a href=https://mirzapandzo.com/>Mirza Pandzo's Blog</a><div>Getting "url" parameter is valid but upstream response is invalid error with Next/Image on WSL2<li><a href=https://drewdevault.com/2023/10/13/Going-off-script.html target=_blank rel=noopener>Going off-script</a> — <a href=https://drewdevault.com>Drew DeVault's blog</a><div>There is a phenomenon in society which I find quite bizarre. Upon our entry to
this mortal coil, we are endowed with self-awareness, agency, and free will.
Each of the 8 billion members of this human race represents a unique person, a
unique worldview, and a unique agency. Yet, many of us have the sam…<li><a href=https://szymonkaliski.com/writing/2023-10-02-building-a-diy-pen-plotter/ target=_blank rel=noopener>Building a DIY Pen Plotter</a> — <a href=http://github.com/dylang/node-rss>Szymon Kaliski</a><div>This article documents my learnings from designing and building a DIY Pen Plotter during the summer of 2023.
My ultimate goal is to build my…<li><a href=https://neil.computer/notes/chart-of-accounts-for-startups-and-saas-companies/ target=_blank rel=noopener>Chart of Accounts for Startups and SaaS Companies</a> — <a href=https://neil.computer/>Neil Panchal</a><div>Accounting is fundamental to starting a business. You need to have a basic understanding of accounting principles and essential bookkeeping. I had to learn it. There was no choice. For filing taxes, your CPA is going to ask you for an Income Statement (also known as P/L statement). If<li><a href=https://journal.valeriansaliou.name/deploy-a-nomad-cluster-on-alpine-linux-with-vultr/ target=_blank rel=noopener>Deploy a Nomad Cluster on Alpine Linux with Vultr</a> — <a href=https://journal.valeriansaliou.name/>Valerian Saliou</a><div>After spending countless hours trying to understand how to deploy my apps on Kubernetes for the first time to host Mirage, an AI API service that I run, I ended up making myself a promise that the next app I work on would be using a more productive & simpler<li><a href=https://jcs.org/2023/10/25/wifi_da target=_blank rel=noopener>BlueSCSI Wi-Fi Desk Accessory 1.0 Released</a> — <a href=https://jcs.org/>joshua stein</a><div>BlueSCSI Wi-Fi Desk Accessory
1.0 has been released:
wifi_da-1.0.sit
(StuffIt 3 archive)
SHA256: ccfc9d27dd5da7412d10cef73b81119a1fec3848e4d1d88ff652a07ffdc6a69aSHA1: ff124972f202ceda6d7fa4788110a67ccda6a13a
This is the initial public release of my BlueSCSI Wi-Fi Desk Accessory for
classic MacOS.<li><a href=https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2023-10-25-my-all-flash-zfs-network-storage-build/ target=_blank rel=noopener>My 2023 all-flash ZFS NAS (Network Storage) build</a> — <a href=https://michael.stapelberg.ch/>Michael Stapelbergs Website</a><div>For over 10 years now, I run two self-built NAS (Network Storage) devices which serve media (currently via Jellyfin) and run daily backups of all my PCs and servers.
In this article, I describe my goals, which hardware I picked for my new build (and why) and how I set it up.
Design Goals
I use my netw…</ul><p>Generated with <a href=https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/openring target=_blank rel=noopener>openring</a>.</section><footer><hr><p><big><strong>Want to comment or have something to add?</strong></big><p>You can write me an email
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