wt32-eth01 running WLED and what went wrong

[everettdale]

First off, I want to thank everyone who helped me with my struggles with what should have been a simple task. So...

Thanks everyone who helped!

Take a peek at this thread to see all that if you like, but I'll summarize it here.

I want to use a WT32-eth01 to run some standalone props with Xlights. Which should be totally doable, and I got a lot of help on how to do this. And it should have been a simple matter of connecting the WT32-eth01 to my computer via a USB-to-TTL module that costs about $6.00, and load WLED onto it from the WLED install site.

This is where the problems started. It seems that some of the USB-to-TTL modules that are offered on Amazon have chips on them that have been flashed with the incorrect VID/PID. This causes them to be unreadable by the device drivers you need in order to connect to the WT32. For whatever reason (I suspect pirated or counterfeit chips) they are flashed with the VID/PID that makes your computer see them as a "verifone to printer" device instead of the proper "cp2010x USB UART bridge" that it should be, see the images. And there is nothing you can do with these incorrectly flashed modules. Except return them.

I bought different modules from different venders and all of them, 5 in total, were incorrect. So my guess is that these venders are getting either the modules, or the chips from the same supplier, and that supplier has bad chips and just doesn't realize it. Again this is just a guess.

My solution was to buy this from Adafruit. My reasoning was that if they sent me a bad module at least I could contact them and resolve the problem. The Module i got from them worked perfectly. When I plugged it in it came up as a USB to UART just as it should have and I was able to connect the WT32 to it and install Wled (ethernet) with no problems.

Anyway. Thanks again for everyone that helped me out. This is an awesome community! Hopefully this little update might help someone else who comes across this weird problem.

-everett

 

[Hoodlum]

I use the WT32-ETH01s

i used a D1 Mini to flash mine, keep the essp8266 in reset and you can use the usb to flash from your computer / browser to the WT32

Albeit i created my own pogo pin peg to match the board i made - but you can just wire it using female dupont wires
4 connections from d1 mini to WT32

WT32 -> D1Mini

GND -> GND
TX0 -> TX
RX0 -> RX
5V -> 5V

+D1Mini RST pin to GND

Pluginto your computer, get the com port it exposes, start the web browser flasher https://install.wled.me/
(choose Ethernet)
Then just short GPIO00 on the WT32 and click install on the webpage

Once flashed, last thing was to connect to the AP it puts out and change the First pixel data port pin to something other than 16 as pin 16 is being used by the ethernet
once that is changed and saved then ethernet will work and you can run from there.

HTH

 

[Martin Mueller]

FYI: ESPixelStick supports the WT32 boards and allows you to connect an SD card to the board so you can run in remote mode.

 

[Hoodlum]

FYI: ESPixelStick supports the WT32 boards and allows you to connect an SD card to the board so you can run in remote mode.

Hey when you say remote mode - are you saying esppixelstick firmware can play the .fseq file format to the pixels directly?

haha - I just looked at the source and answered my own question - yes it does

 

[Martin Mueller]

Yup. ESPixelStick V4 is a full featured FPP Remote device that stores and plays fseq files locally. That allows FPP enabled show players (FPP and xLights) to send the data once and then reduce the data on the wifi to an occasional sync message. This reduces Network load to almost nothing. It also allows you to create a playlist on the ESP and have it run a variety of sequences intermixed with the prebuilt effects. The only thing missing is a schedular.

 

[Hoodlum]

Hey @Martin Mueller you'd know how easy this might be (bc your name is all over the repo)
ESPixelStick seems to only have 1 button by default - how easy would it be to make it have 6 ?
and then config each of those 6 buttons to run a certain fseq off sdcard?
couldn't see any obvious button / input config in the platformio ini

 

[Martin Mueller]

The issue is not the number of buttons, it is the number of available GPIO lines. The Default D1 Mini would not have enough GPIO lines to do what you need. The ESP32_epspv3 image (which works with the ESPS V3 base card) would give you the GPIOs you need. As for the Software, that is easily expanded. The button support is currently disabled. There has been no real function for it.

 

[Hoodlum]

Oh yeah, haha thx, was referring to the esp32 so gpios shouldn't be an issue.

So playlist execution is supported by the one button on ESPPixelStick - good start

This next bit may or may not help envisaging my plan... but...

Goal
I need to run my angel wings
5 buttons, each will run a coloured FSEQ sequences for the wings of course - standard requirements
6th button will likely be used to enable show speakers (via relay / timer etc...)

So given that i have plenty of esp32s and or WT32-ETH01 controllers (yay) use one of those instead (not a RPi because I'm poor)

I can make or order a PCB for cheap
I've already designed one that has 6 buttons and 4 pixel string outputs for the WT32 - but no SDCARD because short on GPIOs - it was for WLED but scrapped this (see below)
I can redesign the PCB for esp32 ( 6 buttons, 4 pixel string and SDCard )

but as it currently stands (my dilemma)
WLED - main branch - no FSEQ - plenty of buttons if recompile - was so close
EPS supports FSEQ out the box from SDCARD, but only 1 button - damn it
Hence me asking if there was a way in increasing button count

I need more luck!

 

[thewanderingpine]

use 2 esps? One with buttons hooked to called WLED apis via http? And the the esp with an DF card ready to play fseq.

 

[Hoodlum]

WLED by itself can't call external HTTP APIs (main branch) only on itself - part of the presets config
WLED can do MQTT though but nope not complicating it
I was looking at a usermod for WLED to call externall http APIs, on button push, it would signal (via FPP API) and tell FPP to play an effect overlay on me continuously (WLED) - this is my fall back if not able to simplify further

Not sure ATM how EPS will recieve the signal - i'll research if it has an API - dosen't seem much info there though.

 

[Martin Mueller]

ESPixelStick can be easily expanded with more button support. But you would need to program it yourself. At this point I am 6 projects behind. Trying to get Web based ESPS flasher working.

 

[thewanderingpine]

in my idea before the button esp wouldn’t be running WLED -- you'd run tasmota or something like that on it. And then use *that* to invoke REST API's on the WLED/ESPixelStick/FPP.

 

[Martin Mueller]

ESPS V4 does not today support a REST API. You would need to implement such a thing.