Recently I've got myself a couple of ESP8266 modules. I flashed the latest NodeMCU firmware, and tried to communicate with a PC using UART.
Here's how I wired my circuit:
Using a simple USB to Serial interface or FTDI I tried to communicate with the ESP8266 with ESPlorer v0.2.0. I opened a Port on baud 74880 because It's the only successful one for some reason.. Here's the log.
ets Jan 8 2013,rst cause:2, boot mode:(3,6)
is the only 'reasonable' output from the ESP8266, sometimes I get
Fatal exception(0):
from ESP8266 module but It's very rare.
I've been struggling with this for a good week now.
ESP8266 is very unpredictable to work with.. For every command I send I get garbage output or that ets Jan…
Any good ideas? Maybe the FTDI can't draw enough current?
Best Answer
You have two problems
1) The output you see (ets Jan 8 2013,rst cause:2, boot mode:(3,6)) is printed by the startup (bootloader) code. After that, the communication continues on a different baudrate (IIRC either 9600 or 115200 baud, depending on the firmware revision).
2) The 3.3V output of an FT232 can't deliver the current required by an ESP8266: not by a wide margin. Use a separate 3.3V supply. Probably the ESP8266 crashes due to too low voltage during or right after startup.