[Lab] ESP8266 issues and data logger

[Adrian Jones]

Dear all,
After the suggestions and ideas from you all, I have developed a
proof-of-concept data logger (http://woodsgood.ca/projects/ ) that currently
measures temperature and humidity. I shall be refining it to measure the
water temperature and water level of our lake. The breadboard design has
been running for a couple of days and I am pleased enough with it to create
a circuit board and complete the rest of the hardware.

Overall, while the ESP8266 is a neat little device and a very cheap solution
for a WiFi transceiver, I have found it to be somewhat unstable and somewhat
unpredictable. I shall try to narrow down what's happening (rail stability
is one issue that I already reported on) but on occasion it has entered
something like a reset loop where it spits out it's "System Ready" message
repeatedly and does not respond to any AT commands. A hard reset (power
cycle) or a chip reset (RST low for 50ms) seems to get everything back on
track. I shall build this into the software to force a reset if the unit
throws multiple failed transmission errors, so this issue (maybe of my own
making) can be addressed.

I don't know if others have experienced this instability, so ideas please? 
Once I test the new batch I have ordered, I shall report again.

Enjoy!

Many thanks, 

.... Adrian