Do you still have to solder the recent revisions of Sonoff plugs in order to flash their firmware?
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Hey everyone, I’m hoping you can help me determine the current status of Sonoff plugs and custom firmware.
I got a bunch of these plugs (inline and plug in) a while back to test out and they work pretty great. Being able to have state is a huge plus coming from RF switches. And flashing them was super easy!
Since then though, it’s come to my attention that the more recent revisions aren’t flashable via wifi and you have to solder them. With Christmas coming, I was planning on replacing all my RF plugs with them. We’re talking like 20-25 plugs (yes it’s a freaking WINTER WONDERLAND in my house).
Solder modding 20-25 plugs sounds miserable to me, so I’m wondering if it’s still the case that these plugs need to be soldered in order to flash them. If so, is there an alternative out there?
I believe you’re correct that wifi flashing no longer works. RE: manual flashing, you don’t have to solder. If you can hold the jumper wires in place while flashing, everything will work fine – I recently did that to 8-10 Sonoff Basics with no issue.
If there are holes in the PCB for the programming pins, then you might just be able to hold them in place long enough by hand. This is what I did with my last few Sonoff Basic devices. I got a row of 4 PCB header pins that you would otherwise solder into the board. Connect the wires going off to your USB serial/TTL adapter. Now, with maybe some clamps or an extra person, insert the pins into the holes on the PCB in the correct order/orientation and lean the pins back.
Meanwhile, hold down the button and plug the USB serial adapter into your computer to supply power using your third (gripping hand… or maybe with some help from someone else, or other clamping arrangement.
It sounds horrible, but its really not that difficult, and you only have to do it occasionally. I did 3 Sonoff devices this way with great success.
Now, I hear that some of the recent manufacturing runs have flowed solder into those holes, so this approach won’t work. Or you’ll have to be even more clever/careful to hold the connection in place for the 20 seconds or 30 seconds it takes to erase and program.
Just push it through holes and put a little sideways pressure and it makes good contact. You can hold it and the sonoff with one hand and also push the button in while you plug in the USB into your computer.
My last sonoff had one of the holes soldered however I just used a header pin on one side and heated the other with a soldering iron and it just cleared it with no fuss.
It’s pretty simple. I also had one switch lock up when I did an OTA update once and I had to reuse the cable to be able to get it up and running again so it’s worth making sure the holes are clear as you might need to flash it again in the future. You could also use solder wick to clear the holes. Either that or just solder in pins but that’s a skill some people don’t have and you can screw the switch up.
A few years back, I ended up with 5 or 6 USB serial adapters, usually acquired one or two at a time, whenever I bought something else from a random ebay supplier and wanted to leverage the shipping. I know there’s concern about counterfeit chips on these, but I’ve had luck with the CP2102/4 and FTDI devices on my macOS machine after installing drivers. Oh, and apparently i’ve got some PL2303HX based devices too. I bought all of them from the alice1101983 seller on ebay that I’ve been pleased with.
The FTDI-based devices tend to be more expensive by just a little bit, and seem to have good quality drivers. I have some of them, too. If you use Windoze or Linux, my experience might not directly apply.
hand… or maybe with some help from someone else, or other clamping arrangement.
