[chbot] On the scrounge for an esp8266 board

[Mark Atherton]

Andy,

I managed to cobble a WiFi thermometer together using the Arduino IDE in 
a couple of hours. Hardware was a D1 inside a plug pack with external 
thermometer (DS18B20) and antenna. Unit has run for it's life (6 mo) 
without needing to be rebooted. Most surprised and happy. First attempt 
to use Arduino IDE based on personal-pride (!) but overall surprised how 
robust everything is.

Had a go at some LUA on a NodeMCU (different project) but it crashed and 
burned after a couple of months. Looks like I need to 
re-flash-the-everything to get it back and working. Not a priority 
project, but may go the Arduino ID route again if needs must.

Had similar experiences to you trying to use a 'real' toolchain 
(actually it was a relief to see your posting, I though I was going 
daft). Also agree with your sentiments - go with the Expressif 
tool-chain and relevant example projects, the factory has a vested 
interest to keep the customers happy.

Also love the D1 module; tiny and u.FL external antenna connector.

Presumably you have poked around at 
https://www.esp8266.com/viewforum.php?f=9 ?

Please keep us updated on progress on your project. Low power sleep is 
probably going to be the tricky part (as usual); not sure how well this 
is supported by the Arduino libraries etc.

-Mark

On 9/01/2019 6:34 PM, Andy Gardner wrote:
>
>
> On 9/01/19 3:41 PM, Dave Bracken wrote:
>> Andy,
>> Was there a particular reason you ruled out the NodeMCU plugin for 
>> the Arduino IDE?  If you haven't looked at it, it might get you 
>> started more quickly.  From what you told me, the Arduino IDE should 
>> be able to do most of the things you need but I appreciate there's a 
>> lot of possible solutions out there and if you have a preference for 
>> developing on a Linux platform, that adds other angles.
>
> Definitely has to be on Linux.
>
>  A quick proof of concept could be to follow the destructions on 
> https://www.instructables.com/id/Quick-Start-to-Nodemcu-ESP8266-on-Arduino-IDE/ 
> as the example code that gets downloaded will get it connected to your 
> wifi and a web interface for blinky etc.
>
> Thanks I take a look at that. The final target is a bare bones esp8266 
> with a si4703 FM Tuner module, 2 x 18650 LiIon 2 x charge controller 
> and 2 x 5v solar panel, in a box with whip antenna. Able to be sent to 
> friends with zero skills to auto link into their wireless network and 
> then be mounted up a pole and left there until something kills it.
>
> Unit will sleep mostly, wake up and check signal levels etc on all FM 
> broadcast channels and if something has changed, fire up the wireless 
> link and make contact with the mothership via MQTT, then go back to 
> sleep.
>
> I've got the mothership up and running - Mosquitto + 
> https://github.com/curzon01/mqtt2sql + Apache ModPERL
>
>> Please feel free to call in if I can be of help writing some code.
>
> That would be great. My brain only has space inside for one 
> programming language and that's PERL. I've done some fairly artistic 
> stuff with PERL over the years but this C stuff is a little beyond me.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Andy
>
>>
>> Dave
>
>
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