[Lab] ESP8266 issues and data logger

[Peter Sjoberg]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On 12/07/2014 09:52 AM, Adrian Jones wrote:
> 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.
How do you plan to power it ? I started a remote sensor but using normal
rf link to a central spot that then can upload things wherever and found
battery lifetime to be a problem, 2xAA would last less than a month, see
end of
http://lpaseen.blogspot.ca/2014/11/temperature-humidity-monitoring.html
for my numbers (and code and so on).
> 
> 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.
Not good in a place-and-forget setup where you don't want to touch it
for a long while.
> 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.
How often? once a week, once an hour or ?
> 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.
In order to save battery I guess you could simplify it and just power
down the whole module while resting and then it always reset before sending.

> 
> 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.
Sounds like I need to get my hands on one of this to do some testing.
What's best, get one from you or ebay (like
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/221619180149) ?

/ps
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/
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=aRtu
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----