Oak as Generic ESP8266

[victagayun]

Hello,

Can anyone tell me whether the oak can be used and progmmed as a generic esp8266 like this?

https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino/blob/master/doc/boards.md#generic-esp8266-modules


And then can be reset back to original factory default fw. https://digistump.com/wiki/oak/tutorials/serialupdate

[PeterF]

Yes, and if you want to do it the easy way, you can just change the upload option in the arduino board manager to serial. You'll need python and PySerial installed as well, as is documented here. You then essentially get the ESP8266 Arduino core as that is the core used by the Oak, with Oak specific tweaks (pin mapping, etc.)

For safety for when you want to revert, you might want to follow the first four steps of the manual claim instructions, so you can get the unique device ID from your Oak just in case it gets wiped at some point.

[victagayun]

Hello Pete,

Thanks for the reply and bringging this up (1) https://digistump.com/wiki/oak/tutorials/serialfirmware .
What this basically mean is that you clean or similar to format the ESP so that it writes/reset the data in 0?

Then I can use board manager (2)  https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino#installing-with-boards-manager to start programming the OAK?
What if I start using the board manager immediately and upload directly to the Oak without going thru the first process (1)?

[PeterF]

Doing (1) will (a) reset the Oak for Serial programming (run program in slot 0) and (b) keep the Oak optimised ESP8266 core, and you'll be doing serial programming instead of the OTA programming via Particle. You don't need to install the ESP8266 core at (2) as this is what the Oak core is based off - all you'll be doing is switching from OTA programming to Serial programming.

If you skipped straight to (2) without doing (1), I'm unsure what would happen, as I haven't tried using the stock ESP8266 with an Oak - I suspect it would work, with the only real issue being GPIO pin numbering would be different.

Pete

[victagayun]

Thank you Pete, sorry for the name...
Anybody got any ideas for the new pin names after ESP reset to ESP core?

[PeterF]

No worries

The Oak to ESP8266 table at the bottom of the pinout wiki page should help with the native ESP8266 pin names.