ESP8266 ESP-01 Programming and Development Board

Name: ESP8266 ESP-01 Programming and Development Board
SKU: 5454
Price: 2.68 USD
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 3.77 (13 reviews)

(13 Reviews)

ESP-01 Programming? so easy!

Designed by blkbox in Taiwan

ESP8266 ESP-01 Programming and Development Board 1

ESP8266 ESP-01 Programming and Development Board 2

ESP8266 ESP-01 Programming and Development Board 3

2015-07-18T19:11:37.281Z-bb_e01adp_demo2.jpg

$2.68

Out of Stock

Sold out since Jun 29, 2018

ESP-01 Programming? so easy!

VR Power Input: 5V ~ 16V. 3.3V Power Output Current Up to 350mA. Automatically selects the power from VR or VUSB. Breadboard Friendly and FTDI Basic 5V Interface. It can be used in the "4-Layer ESP8…

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (4.31)

Documentation: (2.69)

Shipping: (4.54)

Communication: (3.54)

Seth | Feb. 5, 2017

Good

Once i figured it out, it works well. If flashing with arduino IDE, hold down the button until the flash is complete, then power cycle.

If flashing does not work, hold down the flash button while applying power, and then flash.

I wish there was documentation about what all of the pins are... i don't know what the VR pin is (unregulated voltage in maybe?). I sent a message to the manufacturer, but no response. If anyone knows what it is, please let me know!

Jerome | Aug. 20, 2016

Works like a charm

I've been using the board on several projects and it has proven to work reliably in a Platform.io development environment.

Manuel | Aug. 2, 2016

Very good product

I like this little board. It does what it was built for and does it well.
Either to connect to a breadboard and/or a TTL to USB adaptor, this tool is really useful.

Charles | May 5, 2016

Great development Unit

So far its a good testing platform for my project
https://hackaday.io/project/10192-iot-esp8266-dual-relay-module-controller-shield

Michael | March 29, 2016

Fantastic useful and nice tool

Perfect useful tool for programming and debugging the small ESP8266 modules in the Arduino IDE using an USB-serial cable. Love it!

Dan | Jan. 19, 2016

Nice little board.

I am using it with Arduino IDE. Works great so far.

Since it comes without any info I had to search again the internet to find out how to connect to the board.
After that, it did not worked because I had a 3V3 FDTI adapter and so there was not enough voltage to work.
Luckily the adapter allows to cut and solder a bridge to output 5V.
Unluckily I managed to cut beyond the bridge into the 5V line and so there was no power at all.
After this was fixed it worked great.
Because I am using the Arduino IDE, it is a bit annoying to flash as I have to hold the DL button until it starts to flash.

Over all I am happy with this product and I could only recommend it.

Josh | Jan. 11, 2016

Easy to use

While not strictly required for programming the board, it does make it a lot easier. This has everything you'd want for the programmer & works well. Size is good (small) but still easy to manipulate.

Susan | Dec. 5, 2015

I love this thing.

This programmer really simplified programming for me. The esp8266 brims with possibilities. Read the rest of the reviews to get important details on getting the upload to work properly from Arduino.

Mike | Nov. 18, 2015

I like it , Yeah baby !

Very useful tool, and cheap. You are going to need this for developing the ESP8266.
Whats nice about it, is that it uses the ESP01, costing less then $3USD.

David | Oct. 26, 2015

Not too bad.

So just got done soldering the pins for the FTDI connection, and have to say the actual ESP8266 soldering job was a little rough. To make sure it would work while I had the soldering iron out I gave it a once over.

Also, I was able to find their wire diagram images off their eBay page for the other reviewer who was asking.
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee47/mickey231bhq/test/bb_e01adp_pinout_zpsa0mtnr4a.jpg

ESP8266 firmware flasher
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee47/mickey231bhq/test/bb_e01adp_fdt_zpspfqqzqd9.jpg
Link to tool:
http://www.electrodragon.com/w/ESP8266_firmware_flasher

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee47/mickey231bhq/test/bb_e01adp_ide_zpsb3bjuyrq.jpg

Seller could give better instructions on how to use this programmer for both flashing and the Arduino IDE. While I was able to flash the ESP-01 I was unable to upload a simple blink program using the sellers Arduino IDE settings.

Update:
I wasn't able to get this to upload code from the Arduino IDE the original way this board worked and after messing with this thing for hours I ended up making my own two button version from scratch. With the knowledge of making my own from scratch I now knew how this board was supposed to work and I finally made some changes to where I got this board to upload code from the Arduino IDE as well.

Now this probably is considered ruining the board but it works flawlessly for me.
I ended up soldering a jumper wire to from 0 to GD and from there I soldered a post onto RS. I am able to place a jumper pin onto the extruding metal wire lead and the post to short it out. From there I just remove the jumper pin totally and then hit "Upload" in the Arduino IDE and it uploads every time.

It's a very ugly quick fix, here's the photo:
http://getlift.org/gallery/blkbox_bb-E01ADP_hack.jpg

Works with my 3.3v & 5v FTDI connectors.
Works/Tested with Arduino IDE 1.6.5
Works/Tested with ESP FLASH DOWNLOAD TOOL V2.3 (Able to update board firmware)

Just a Warning:
This isn't very useful for anything but programming. Being that if you want to RUN the board GPIO 0 is always grounded out!

Frantisek | Oct. 7, 2015

Good product, bad support.

I have asked for wiring diagram... after purchase, no answer!
.....................................................................................................

Robert | Aug. 27, 2015

Good idea, but bad production

The board arrived in acceptable time, but it did not work. When I plugged it to an ESP8266 and an FTDI Serial device, it showed data coming from the ESP8266, but not data could be sent to the ESP8266. A check of the data trace showed, that a SMD resistor in the TXD path was connected at one side only. Resoldering made the communication work, but no programming mode. It turned up, that all soldering was poor, and the smaller SMD components started to fall of the board. No chance to resolder all of them by hand, especially w/o schematics.
However, when contacted, the seller responded immediately and promised to ship a new board. I hope the new one is fine.

James | Aug. 23, 2015

Handy little helper, but needs documentation.

I recently purchased this board (my first purchase on tindie) to simplify programming an esp8266-01 WiFi board using Arduino IDE/sketch. The board connects between my FTDI and esp8266-01, to facilitate programming (see image). The board on the left is the FTDI serial interface card that connects via USB to my computer, which is running my Arduino IDE. The board in the middle is the this blkbox development board, with selected pins soldered to header pins, to facilitate testing. The board on the right is the esp8266-01.
One detail that is not described well on this item's tindie description is the precise use of the pushbutton. Experimentally, I discovered that the pushbutton has to be held down while clicking on the "Upload" button in the Arduino IDE, then released as soon as the first (of two) set of dots appear in the status window in the Arduino IDE. These dots appear after compiling the sketch and uploading it to your esp8266. I release the button as soon as the status line reports "Done uploading." and I see the dots (periods) begin appearing in the area below the status line in the Arduino IDE.
I soldered the FTDI board to the blkbox dev board to minimize poor connections with jumper wires. I also soldered some header pins to the connectors along the top/bottom of the blkbox board, to help with testing.
My initial test sketch was Blink (comes packaged with Arduino IDE), modified to use pin 1/GPIO1 (instead of pin 13) LED on-board the esp8266
What I have discovered is that after programming the esp8266, disconnect the USB cable from the FTDI, and then apply power to the blkbox board (and esp8266) with an external 5VDC power supply using the "5V" pin only. Using the VR pin (with either 5VDC or 3.3VDC) did not work for me. Nor did connecting the "3V" pin to a 3.3VDC external power supply. After power-up, the esp8266 blue LED just blinked away, happy as a clam!
Obviously, this doesn't test any of the WiFi functionality on the esp8266, and one initial test using the WiFiWebServer example sketch included with the Arduino IDE (modified for my network credentials) works only while the FTDI device is powering the esp8266 (via blkbox). When disconnecting from the PC and powering externally, the WiFiWebServer sketch stops working. I have also disconnected my esp8266 completely from the blkbox device (and the FTDI) by powering the esp separately from my external power source, to no avail. I *may* have a damaged esp8266 module, after trying a multitude of experiments, so my next move is to use a different esp8266 to see if my results change for the better.
Prior to getting this board, BTW, I was using a rather Rube Goldberg contraption involving various combinations of ESPlorer, lualoader, NodeMCU, Arduino IDE, external power supplies, putty, CoolTerm, Termite, and other components! Needless to say, this arrangement was sub-optimal and left too much to chance. As a result, I had many challenges getting even a simple program loaded onto my esp8266.
So, I am happy to have this blkbox device, as it does simplify my esp8266 programming task considerably.
I recommend this board to anyone trying to program their esp8266-01. Review Image