Friday, 18 September 2015

New CaptiveIntraweb release V3 - ESP8266 / NodeMCU based captive portal

After a few hours of brushing things up, I released a new version of my CaptiveIntraweb on  my GitHub repo.
Apart from a few bug fixes, an all-new init.lua now does the Wifi Setup, compiles the LUA files and starts the servers. It also features an option to prevent the TCP and UDP servers from starting.

I did most of the development on my new, very user friendly V3 NodeMcu Lua WIFI Development Board I got directly from the PRC from Banggood. That board has 4MByte of flash memory. (Yes. I mean MBytes here, not MBit)

Looks a lot like a ESP-12E module on the board

If you don't know about CaptiveIntraweb, here is the original video from May 2015, although quite a bit of progress has been made since then.

With the new CaptiveIntraweb  loaded, the module startup now looks like this:
 ---------------------  
 Setting up WiFi AP...  
 Done.  
 ---------------------  
 Flash size is 4096 kBytes.  
 File system:  
  Total : 3360 kBytes  
  Used : 124 kBytes  
  Remain: 3236 kBytes  
 ---------------------  
 Compiling LUA files...  
 No need to compile   dns-liar.lua  
 No need to compile   server.lua  
 Compiling done.  
 ---------------------  
 Send some xxxx Keystrokes now to abort startup.  
 Will launch servers in 5 seconds...  
 > ---------------------  
 Starting HTTP Server  
 HTTP Server listening. Free Heap:    13080  
 Starting DNS Server  
 DNS Server listening. Free Heap:    10008  
 ---------------------  

17 comments:

  1. Hello, I am very interested in your project, however I have zero experience for uploading the nodemcu based code to these EPS boards. I have the exact same board you mention in this project page the V3 NodeMcu Lua WIFI Development Board. I have watched you original video, what is the software you are using to upload the code to the board? Any further help you could give a newbie would be oh so appreciated. I have only worked with the esp boards using the Arduino IDE platform.

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  2. If you have that board, things are really easy, provided you have the driver for the usb/serial chip installed ( https://paradisetronic.com/de/treiber ).
    To flash the firmware, you need the firmware uploader from here: https://github.com/nodemcu/nodemcu-flasher
    Once the firmware ist running, you can run LUA code on the module. To upload code and interact with the module, I use esplorer ( http://esp8266.ru/esplorer/ )
    Once you start esplorer, you have to chose the right COM-port from the dropdown-list and hit the "Open" button.
    You can now interact with the module.

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  3. Hello, I have just started getting into the esp8266 module as well as some arduino projects. I am mainly interested to create fun puzzle geocaches. I am sure if you have ever heard of it but its worth looking up online. My goal was to build a Geocache that someone will find hidden somewhere in my town. Once they find it they will have to connect a battery to power the esp8266 inside. Then using their phone or wifi device they would load the web page and be able to fill in there name to sign a built in log book (write name to text file). I would then like to display the text file of all previous people that filled in there name. I know how to do this via PHP and I have been able to use your code to get my esp8266 running a WiFi AP and play some of the games. Do you have any suggestions on how to file to a text file using only the esp8266 chip?

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    1. Hi Wayne, great idea. I've actually used the portal in outdoor scouting games. The main problem will be a good power supply. While it runs ok for about two days on a good quality 18650 cell, you'll need a solar panel for a permanent installation. The size of that will make it hard to hide.
      About leaving a message / name:
      If you look at the source code of the server, you can see how the counter variable is written to / read from the file system. So storing data permanently on the portal is not a problem.
      But in its current implementation, the server the server is not too bright. It can send a html form easily like described here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/HTML/Forms/Sending_and_retrieving_form_data
      But when you hit the "send" button, you'll have to parse the get-request and extract the form content from it.
      I know that this guy: http://iotests.blogspot.fr/2015/10/wifi-throwie-improved-version-faster.html did just that. Unfortunately I haven't seen that part of his code.

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  5. Thanks for sharing this project. can you please specify the start address for flashing the firmware in the ESP-01 module?

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    1. The single .bin file is simply written from 0x00000. Nothing special to to it. Baudrate then in 9k6. Does say it flashes the firmware ok?

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  6. Thanks for the info, it is working now!

    Would it be possible to provide a version of the firmware with WS2812 support?
    #define LUA_USE_MODULES_WS2812

    I also had to format() the NodeMCU file system before I could write files to it, I got "open a file first" errors on the write commands.

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  7. Yes, reformatting is necessary, because the size of the file system depends on the size of the firmware image.
    I'll look into the WS2812 thing. Do you have a specific project in mind? If so I'd like to hear about it.

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  8. I would like to use the captive proxy with the dual strip WiFI Lights on my son's rc-car:
    http://dangerousprototypes.com/2015/02/11/wifi-led-light-esp8266-ws2812b-lua/

    Currently I'm trying to install the Dev kit so I will be able to customize the Lua firmware.

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    1. Sounds interesting. Try that: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zfetsyn5i97jx5e/NodeMCU095-ARe-2812-dns.bin?dl=0

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  9. Hi Andreas.I have a question. But first, I want to thank you for the excellent video that posted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQM-GHY6VJ8. I have lost a few hours to study the LUA language. But I'm still very raw. I liked using the captiveIntraweb and DHT22 sensor + nodemcu v3. I have done some testing but without success. I can not find anything on the web that talk about it. I would appreciate to give me a hand on this. Thank you very much

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    1. There is a DHT-library in the newer NodeMCU builds that supports the DHT22. What are you trying to do with it?
      About LUA in general: It is very easy to get started with simple projects, but at some point the "event driven" nature of NodeMCU makes things confusing.
      Depending on your requirements, a native application made with the Arduino IDE for the ESP8266 might be an alternative.

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    2. Yes. I think that a native application made with the Arduino IDE, It is the easi way for me to start. tks 73´s

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  10. Can the GPIO's be used with your custom NodeMCU firmware from your release 03?

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    1. Yes, I am pretty sure I had GPIO enabled in that build.

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  11. Hello
    I wanna get RSSI from esp8266 (using it as a arduino module)
    Signal goes from a smartphone to esp8266 (connected to a arduino uno)

    How is it possible to make it simple way?

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