Dear all,
Heres the link to the ESP8266 wifi microcontroller monitoring the temp and humidity under the floor of the makerspace.
https://thingspeak.com/channels/49467
Theres a public view of the data you can download or view in the graph on the page.
Gordon
Nice one 
I think it’s broken… Had an issue with it just after you left, and had to replug the power. It’s not worked since.
Ive no idea what it is with the arch.
I can have something running for days at a time with no problems and then take it to the arch and it breaks…
Is the power still going to the extension cord i plugged it into?
Its plugged into one of the new wall sockets on the south side.
It is a bit fragile as i bunged it together quickly with what i had laying around.
I cant get down to fix it in the nesr future.
Pull it apart and check the connections. Its pretty simple.
Maybe blob some hot glue on things like the pin jumper and pin connectors.
Gordon
I think it has a lot to do with these crap DuPont connectors.
Really you should be soldering the joints or using clip connectors.
The power fell out the regulator some how.
I didnt have a lot of time when i plugged it together.
Its just what i had to hand.
That’s okay. I’ve soldered it.
Im going to knock up a little board for these as im going to use a few around the house.
Maybe ill finally try one of the board fab houses this time rather than making them myself.
Using the esp8266 01 plugged into headers. With facility for battery or wall wart.
Ive found a little 3.3v Switching regulator in a nice little 3 legged package that i can solder on the board. The whole device will be tiny even with the few through hole components ill need.
Or i could get the magnifying glass out and go surface mount with my own regulator and i should get it in the footprint of the Esp8266 board.
I lay awake last night thinking about a little board that would do exactly that.
Happy to chip in on a ‘bulk’ order of some boards if our specifications match…
Would it make sense to knock something up in EAGLE, get @gordonendersby to help make a prototype to test then send off for a small batch of 20-30 of them to be made…
Would be good if it could take the SMD version of the ESP board, have the DH22 on it, and space for either a couple coin cells or 3.3V regulator.
3 AA batteries seem to be whats used by those working on the long life battery use.
Theres a very long thread on the forum about it.
http://www.esp8266.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2823
Theres some code in there somewhere as well.
From memory you need to break out one more pin from the chip on the board for the timer interupt to restart the processor from sleep. some even remove the power indicator led. You can monitor the battery state, the function is documented in the sdk and has been exposed in the supporting libraries. You put the whole device to sleep between readings and connecting to the wifi access point.
The Esp can wake connnect the wifi and upload the readings very quickly.
So uses very little power while the timer runs till the next reading.
Just re reading through.
http://www.esp8266.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2823&start=60#p22449
A few code changes and predicted results of possibly a year?
Its only the 01 that needs the fiddly soldering for deep sleep to work.
It seems the esp8266 12 has the pins exposed.
http://www.esp8266.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=4213&hilit=Deep+sleep+pin
Could you share the code, I have bought components for making two more, so that we can measure ambient inside and outside humidity so that the data is a bit more useful that it is right now. The under floor humidity is only 10-15% more than the official ambient humidity in London this evening.
Sure.
Ill wrap it up a bit later with the libraries i used.
Its just cut and pasted from examples at the moment.
It will use the same api key. you just need to change the field names to match the new fields you add in thingspeak.
Heres a link to my SLMS dropbox folder with the ESP8266 stuff in.
You will need the 1.6.5 version of the Arduino ide.
Follow instructions here called “installing with boards manager” to set it up for the ESP8266 boards.
DHT22Thingspeak - is the code for the little esp8266 01 ive used on the device in the arch.
oledDHT22Thingspeak - Does the same but also displays on the small 0.96 inch i2c oled displays available on ebay. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/400928024000?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Havent got it to work yet with the 1.3inch ones.
This uses the ESP8266 12 as it need more gpio pins either on a breakout board or the full nodemcu board.
RFIDLcdReader - The code that connects to the membership proxy and verifies key fobs.
Again ESP8266 12 version for the spi and extra gpio pins.
Uses the liquidcrystal library to display on 20x4 lcd display. Reads from the rfid readers weve been using with the library ive included in dropbox folder.
Libraries - Modified libraries to work with the ESP8266 version of the Arduino IDE.
Im going to be away for a week in Salisbury house hunting.
But when I get back Ill have a go at designing a board in Eagle.
Theres a few good example circuits around showing the correct use of pullup resistors and power smoothing caps to make the boards more stable. Several versions based on whether you want it bare bones and stand alone without flashing or all singing and dancing with buttons to put it into flash mode ready to upload your firmware. But at the moment I cant put my hands on them. Ill post them later when I find them.
The Eagle libraries are available now for the ESP8266 boards.
Ive included a copy of one of them, ESP8266-Eagle_Library-master.zip, in dropbox but there are others available.
Gordon
Someones written a free book on the esp8266.
Seems pretty comprehensive.
http://neilkolban.com/tech/esp8266/
Seems to be reliable enough now.
https://thingspeak.com/channels/49467
Would be intetesting if those spikes correspond to particular activities in the arch.
A few more Esp8266 01’s arrived while i was away so im hoping to knock together a few of these sensors in a better package to use at home soon.#
Gordon