Flashing ESP-01 on W11—programmer not recognized

ESPHome
1

I am trying to flash my ESP-01 on my W11 machine via the ESP Device web page. This is the programmer I’m using. When I plug it in to USB a red light comes on, but nothing else happens. Nothing shows up on my USB device list.

When I look at device manager’s other devices and serial ports list, there’s nothing that looks like a USB device, and when I unplug the programmer, nothing changes.

The programmer came in a pack of two. Behave the same and it seems unlikely that I have two DOA programmers.

What to do?

2

This may help:

3

Hello dryheat122,

Frequently Asked Questions — ESPHome .

  • Windows you likely need to load the driver for the serial chip you are trying to talk to. You MUST use edge or chrome, no other browsers will likely work.
  • If you are using Linux, does the user trying to flash it have permission for dialout? Also you have to use chrome.

If you try to load something and it can’t talk to the chip, the pop-up (unless you have it blocked) tells you all this.

4

You do the right thing and look in the Windows Device Manager.
It should be listed in ports or other devices, so if they are not there then you need to see if it is named something different.
You can change the view to one that sort on connection instead, which will make it easier to survey the USB devices.
Until you get it listed in Device Manager other steps are useless.

5

I gave up on those boards for ESP01 programming, after losing too many hours of my life trying. Instead I use these https://www.aliexpress.us/item/1005002064355636.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.0.0.21ef1802NyaDzw&gatewayAdapt=4itemAdapt and build and run my projects on them.

Others have had more luck - see my original post Successfully programming ESP-01 / ESP-01S and subsequent replies on programming with the board you’re using working. I probably downloaded drivers for CH340 and others in the distant past.

6

Better option is THIS universal programmer. But, back to esp-01: what’s the problem is that many of these esp’s doesn’t have all needed resistors onboard (pullups/pulldowns from GPIO0,2, reset, enable), so it’s mandatory to measure that with multimeter before using it (it should have 10kohm from pin to GND or to +3.3V) and add them if they are missing, otherwise it can happen that you’ll be able to program it with this programmer, but later it won’t start if connected only to power supply, or it will/won’t start (randomly) - been there, experienced that.