I found it super-hard to find meaningful info on how to link a tiny little ESP8266 (ESP-01 in my case) to an Arduino and talk to it.

Schematics

Things to notice here is power regulator 1117-33 that converts 5V of Arduino board into stable 3.3V for ESP8266. We could probably use 3.3V Arduino output, but I read it’s not powerful enough for when the module is transmitting. Also I wired Arduino D11 to RXD of ESP8266 through voltage divider, so that 5V is also converted to 3.3V range. Logic level converters can be used here, but I have none handy, so divider be it.

alt

Software

My module was initially in 115200 baud mode. When you don’t know that it may cause a lot of confusion. Arduino I have isn’t quick enough to do any useful work and catch up, so I had to find a way to switch module to a lower baud rate.

The module speaks AT-commands, and there are dangerous sequences that can brick your module that I won’t write here to save everyone from trouble. Here’s a pretty good one instead:

AT+UART_DEF=57600,8,1,0,0

It switches UART into 57600 baud mode with 8 bits, 1 stop bit, 0 for parity and 0 for flow control.

Here’s the small program that lets you talk to the module in Serial Monitor tool.

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>

SoftwareSerial wifi(10, 11); // RX, TX

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);
  while (!Serial) { }

//  wifi.begin(115200);
//  wifi.println("AT+UART_DEF=57600,8,1,0,0\r\n");

  wifi.begin(57600);
  wifi.println("AT+GMR\r\n");
}

void loop() {
  if (wifi.available()) Serial.write(wifi.read());
  if (Serial.available()) wifi.write(Serial.read());
}

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