Problem WiFi Setup

[PeterPHanlon]

I am an old codger from Australia. I am familiar with Arduino, less so with ESP8266. I make the odd Eagle PCB.

I have a few Arduino Mini's, although they don't look identical to your Pro Mini. I also use a MacOSX Big Sur for development.
I have a couple of Adafrruit Huzzah Feather boards. I am interested in the project primarily because I have a large MHI AirCon which is driving me mad, and it does seem to have a lot in common with the environment described.

The documentation provided is terrific, and I have made a lot of progress, but have needed to change things a bit to suit the bits I have.

Firstly Software: The ESP JSON 6 code needed changing to compile - basically to use JsonDocument class. The changes seem to be a bit simpler than the original, due to Json improvements. I also needed to put a Silabs Driver on the Mac to upload to the Huzzah.

Next Hardware. I had to rework the 2 boards. The Huzzah includes a USB connector, and my Mini is loaded through a FTDI connection. To get access to each board for changing software, and for the connector to the MHI I needed a bit different arrangement. I will send a photo if it might be of general interest. I haven't wired the MHI bit yet, as we are in Covid lockdown.

Anyway, on to the problem. Power to the Huzzah and the Mini is via the USB connector on the Huzzah. Mini LED ON.
I search for a Network, and find one which is obviously the ESP board. But its SSID is ESP_C109E7 and unpassworded.
I don't know how to relate it to my home Wifi SSID/PSWD. I also changed the code temporarily to grab this network.

I do get a nice Wifi Manager screen Config Info Update etc etc, but am unsure on what I should be setting where.
When I upload code into the Huzzah via the SiLabs driver, I don't seem to need any Burnloader activity from the Arduino IDE.

Any comments welcome. Sorry this is a bit preliminary.

Peter Hanlon

[PeterPHanlon]

Further to the last post, a photo of my setup. I put a 104 cap between the DTR pin on the FTDI line and the R reset pin on the Arduiano Mini. I couldn't get a voltage regulator Pololu but hard-wired an L7805 with a couple of caps. The 5V supply comes from either USB, FTDI, or L7805 Vout and is fed to both boards. Similarly GND. The two jumpers - one side from the Huzzah, and one side from Arduino on both the TX and RX lines. So removing them lets software in either to be uploaded. Underneath it looks like a birds nest or dogs breakfast.