Esp8266

RPi_Pimoroni_ESP8266
Micropython firmware flashing
January 20 - 2017

with Pimoroni mp-flash-firmware.sh we have

( …a blue light on the ESP8266 module flashing quickly during this process)

the blue light does not stop even if the mp-flash-firmware.sh command has completed its task. ( No error messages during the execution)

The REPL using the suggested command string with minicom give a quick characters dump on the terminal screen.
Also after a RPi’s reboot the blue light quick flashing does not stop.

To verify hardware’s failure I have reinstalled the original AT firmware using the at-flash-firmware.sh
command in Pimoroni/espiot-phat-master/firmware dir
and all is running properly with AT firmware.
( blue light stopped!!!)
Please let me know what’s wrong in my procedure and if possible, give me some suggestion to solve the problem with micropython flashing.

Best regards
Federico Monaldi

esp8266-20170108-v1.8.7.bin (elf, map)

The problem is with this firmware - I have downloaded from the micropython official repository the firmware esp8266-20160809-v1.8.3.bin ( the one declared in Pimoroni flash-mp-firmware.sh ) and all the problems described in my previous email disappeared. At this point the problem is not in the Pimoroni ESP8266 pHAT.

Regards
Federico Monaldi

I haven’t tried more recent firmwares… I’ll check if there are any recent ones that work even if the very latest does not, there might be a build in betweeen that plays ball… I suspect it will be a fairly general issue so presumably it is likely to be sorted out in a future firmware.

Thank for your feedback

yes, I don’t think it has anything to do with the flashing script, but more likely the firmware is non-functional, or perhaps corrupt.

I see your script is named such that it does not attempt to detect network, did you run into issues with the original script? … I would only be half surprised as I know I have been refining the network detection elsewhere to cater for special cases but the espiotphat repo scripts almost certainly still use a cruder approach.

Either way, I need to revisit the repo and I’ll check then if that’s something that needs to be improved as well.

I only have disabled the network check
(
if ! check_network; than
became
if check_network; than
— my poor bash script knowledge —
)
because my Internet connection is by USB tethering ( with my Samsung KZoom
smartphone) the script does not recognized the RPi as connected.
Again thank for your support

Federico Monaldi

cheers… yes I suspect that case would be resolved by the refined approach… going to check what’s up with the latest mp firmware then I will update the script to try to fix both of those issues (well, the network one, plus try to roll a newer firmware, not necessarily the latest).

To confirm that the problem is not depending from a corrupted firmware, I have flashed also the previous one esp8266-20161110-v1.8.6.bin and the result does not change. Restoring the esp8266-20160809-v1.8.3.bin make all running properly.

I have found that all the firmwares with entry point 40100004 can be
flashed and run properly .Only the last two ( v1.8.7 and v1.8.6) with
different entry point from 40100004 give us problems.Inspect the photo to
have the results of
esptool.py image_info <image.bin>
I hope that this info make easier your task.
Regards
Federico Monaldi

it should be fixed i.e work with v1.8.6 and 1.8.7 now. The latest is harcoded in the repo. I have also updated the network_check function, which may mean you don’t have to override it manually, fingers crossed.

You have done a good job -
Newly thank

Federico Monaldi

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