ESP8266 Firmware Update General Tutorial

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Elsie Zhou & filed under Tutorial .

Overview

Esp8266 is a WiFi module manufactured by Espressif. This tutorial aims to teach how to update firmware for three ITEAD Esp8266 products (Wee Serial Module, WBoard Pro, ITDB06).

Note: The firmware programming process for the three devices are only different in the way of entering into program mode.

Update Process

Windows

Download the Tool

http://bbs.espressif.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=433

Obtain AT Programming File (bin file)

http://dl.itead.cc/ITDB06/ITDB06-W25Q80-1.0.0.rar

Initialize device

For WBoard Pro, before programming, you should write Blink for mega2560 or other programs that do not take up the serial port, so as to release serial port.

1：Use jumper to shortcircuit connect 2-4, 1-3
2：Write Blink for Mega 2560 through Arduino IDE

Navigate to Blink as below:

Configure Flash Download Tool

1：If flash is 512k, FLASH SIZE should choose 4Mbit
2：If flash is 1M, FLASH SIZE should choose 8Mbit
3：If flash is 4M, FLASH SIZE should choose 32Mbit
4：COM PORT is current device connected port, which can be viewed by Device Manager
5：BAUDRATE is the adopted baud rate when programming, it is 115200

Enter into programming mode

1：Pull GPIO_0 to low

Wee Serial： switch the button to FW
WBoard Pro：use jumper to shortcircuit connect 4 - 6, 3 - 5, FW
ITDB06：shortcircuit connect IO0 with GND

2：Reset

Wee Serial：Click BEE_RST
WBoard Pro：Click E-RESET
ITDB06:shortcircuit connect RST with GND

Click “Start”in the Tool to begin Programming

LINUX

Configure as below:

1：Make sure the Python version of installed system is Python 2.7 or above version, tap the command: python to view version. If the version does not meet requirement, please update to version 2.7 or above version.
2：Install pip by command: sudo apt-get install python-pip (ubuntu)
3：Install esptool by command: pip install esptool

Obtain AT Programming File(bin file), same as windows
Initialize the device，same as windows
Let device enter into firmware programming mode，same as windows

Start updating firmware by the command:esptool.py –port /dev/ttyUSB0 write_flash 0x00000 xxxx.bin

1：/dev/ttyUSB0  is current device connected serial port, it will be changed according to the actual condition. To view the actual serial port, you can plug and unplug the device, then plug again and tap: ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*
2：0x00000 is  the address that firmware programming on flash
3：xxx.bin is the bin file acquired from last step