Internet connected MiP
I accomplished my first steps yesterday to round out a productive weekend. I've settled on a different method of connecting MiP compared to the picture below. I experienced first-hand the problem of trying to connect a device to the RX/TX pair on a D1 mini. The USB port is electrically connected to the RX/TX pins and the Arduino IDE could not detect it if MiP was connected to the pins. To program the board using USB, MiP needed to be disconnected from RX/TX each time. It got tedious after awhile.
While I have OTA programming working, it doesn't take much to undo it, and I accidentally undid it several times, always being forced back to programming the D1 mini using USB. I need to be able to access the USB port for the eventual mistake in OTA programming and I need to be able to program without disconnecting MiP. That's where I was when I discovered Serial.swap() which shifts the UART onboard from RX/TX to GPIO13/15. Once I figured out Serial.swap() it was easy to not just program the board but adapt the serial selector mechanism in the MiP ProMini Pack library to use Serial.swap() instead.
I've created a new repository where I've adapted the MiP ProMini Pack library to support the ESP8266.
- Refine the new library.
- Migrate the D1 mini inside MiP's case but most importantly, make it look nice.
This is the project I've wanted to do most of all but first I needed to understand how MiP works and what it takes to program it. Earlier I performed a simple experiment to enable MiP to send an email but I really wanted a robust and persistent connection to the Internet. I now feel confident that I can port the ProMini Pack library to a compatible D1 mini. I have ordered five of these boards from Amazon.
- Physical connection between D1 mini and MiP.
- Change ProMini Pack's serial read and write mechanism to support the D1 mini.
I've made the connection between MiP and D1 mini clone. Simple, really. The PlaySound.ino sketch is working and I've been able to add over-the-air (OTA) programming and telnet debugging support to the sketch.
