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Flash NodeMcu on ESP8266 (ESP-01 Modul)

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By cronJ
2 min read

There is a new guide for flashing NodeMcu on ESP8266. See link

A little instruction on how to flash NodeMCU on your ESP-01 module. Then you can run LUA code on your ESP8266.

Hardware needed:

  • ESP-01 module
  • FTDI UM232R as USB-to-serial adapter (or a compatible adapter)

Software needed:

  • Git
  • Python 2
  • Hterm (or any software to view serial communication)

Connection of the module

Pin definition and mapping to the signal names:

ESP-01_PinNumber

  1. GND
  2. UTXD
  3. GPIO2
  4. CH_PD
  5. GPIO0
  6. RST/GPIO16
  7. URXD
  8. VCC

The following mapping works for me:

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VCC   -> 3V3
GND   -> GND
RST   -> 3V3
CH_PD -> 3V3
URXD  -> DB0 (UM232R)
UTXD  -> DB1 (UM232R)
GPIO0 -> GND
GPIO2 -> 3V3

The jumper for JP1 on the FTDI serial adapter needs to connect 1 and 2, which selects an IO voltage of 3.3 V. Power will be supplied from an external power supply.

Preparation for the flashing

Load the following flash tool by cloning the GitHub repository:

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git clone https://github.com/themadinventor/esptool.git

Now you can load the NodeMCU firmware by cloning it from GitHub:

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git clone https://github.com/nodemcu/nodemcu-firmware.git

After the last step, you can copy the nodemcu_latest.bin from ./pre_build/latest/ into the esptool folder. It is also sufficient to only load this file from GitHub without cloning the whole repository.

Flash NodeMCU

Now we can flash the NodeMCU firmware to the module. Check the serial port number in your hardware manager. My module is connected to port 11. So, I will use COM11 for the next command.

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python esptool.py --port COM11 write_flash 0x0000 nodemcu_latest.bin

When you encounter an issue where the module is not found, try installing the pyserial module which seems to be missing.

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pip install pyserial

If there are connection problems, try reconnecting pin CH_PD to 3.3 V. Maybe you need to repeat this step until the flash process starts.

Test the new firmware

If the flash process was successful we can check if the new firmware runs. We need to establish a serial communication to the module. Use the following settings for the connection with Hterm:

  • COM-port - Used for the flash command (COM11 on my module)
  • baud rate is 9600
  • newline needs to be set to CR+LF (carriage return and line feed)
  • Input control set to ASCII
  • CR+LF for “send on enter”.

When you reset your module the following should be written to the serial interface:

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NodeMCU 0.9.5 build 20150127  powered by Lua 5.1.4
lua: cannot open init.lua>

For a quick test, we connect an LED with a resistor from GPIO0 to GND. With the following commands, we can toggle the LED via the console.

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gpio.mode(3, gpio.OUTPUT) -- GPIO set to OUTPUT
gpio.write(3, 1) -- GPIO set to HIGH
gpio.write(3, 0) -- GPIO set to LOW

The number 3 in the command describes the IO index. GPIO0 has the IO index 3 and not 0. Here you can find the pin map for the gpio module.

I will add other test scripts with advanced functionality in the future.

Electronics, ESP8266, NodeMCU
electronics esp8266 nodemcu lua
This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.