Hi all. I’m looking to get started with my first attempt to flash ESPHome firmware onto some of my LED smart lights. I’ve never really done much soldering before, so this will be an adventure. Luckily I’ve got a dead one of these laying around to practice on first. So I found the ESP chip easily enough, and the solder points on the back are clearly labelled for RX, TX, GND, and 3.3V. What I’m not sure about is how to put the chip in “programming” mode. I’m not sure what to make of the “RST” connection, or the bottom two that are just labelled “0” and “12” as far as I can tell.
I also don’t really know how to make a connection there. Would I cut the male end off of a jumper cable, strip it, and solder that directly onto the board there? Soldering noob here, happy to take any advice.
The chip itself is an ESP8285, and I’m given to understand that should work with ESPHome assuming I can figure out how to make the connection to flash it. Thanks in advance.
Pretty much, although I’d suggest getting a USB-serial cable with male jumpers and using lever nuts (I’m pretty much talking about WAGO here, but any lever nuts will do), so you can solder some standalone wires to the pads–that way you can keep the USB-serial cable for future use and it’ll be easier to troubleshoot issues, if they arise. Potentially less desoldering later on.
Okay, so if I got you right you’re saying I should solder a short lead of standalone wires directly to the pads there. Pick up a USB-serial cable and use some inline lever-nuts to connect that cable to the leads when I need. Will the male jumper ends fit into one of those as-is? What would you use to cover the expose leads when I remove the lever-nuts to close it all back up again?
There are no header pins. They are solder pads. If you have a lot of them to do it can be worth investing in a test jig. e.g. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3615910
Pretty much, get some 18-20 AWG stranded wire, strip one end and solder it to the pad with some flux and strip the other end for the lever nut. I’ve made male jumpers fit into those, but I don’t remember if I’ve used the wider version of those or not, but I highly doubt that a male jumper is larger than 12 AWG which most take.
When you’re done, just cut the wires with wire cutters and you’ll be back to a (pointy) pad. If you’re still worried then, put some electrical tape over the pads.
Wow, that’s really cool. I do have a goodly number of these lights to do. That exact jig would be awkward because the ESP board is 90° off of the main board that houses the LEDs. The idea of using something like that to stabilize some probes and hold them on the pads…now that’s an idea I might be able to work with. TY for the link, very cool.
