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Project logs / Arachnio -- Arduino Micro variant with onboard ESP8266
The headline tells the heart of the story -- the Arachnio is an Arduino Micro variant with onboard WiFi via the increasingly ubiquitous ESP8266. As well as the core board, I'm also putting together a sensor node board, the Arachnode, and a prototyping board, the ArachnoProto.
The Arachnode incorporates a microSD card, a solar battery charger, a real time clock, and a crypto modules.
The ArachnoProto has plenty of prototyping space, an ICSP connector, two LEDs, and two pushbuttons.
I'm working on wrapping the Arduino WiFi interface around the standard ESP8266 AT commands so the Arachnio can be used with all of the existing network libraries for the Arduino. The hardware is set up such that the 32u4 can be programmed over the air, but that's going to require some more firmware work on the ESP8266 side.
I've read a number of posts complaining about the stability of the ESP8266 modules on the market. The software has been rapidly improving, but I suspect there are hardware issues with the modules as well, specifically in the decoupling capacitor. The suggested decoupling capacitor is a single 10 uF capacitor with no smaller caps. This is not recommended technique -- see http://http://www.analog.com/media/en/training-seminars/tutorials/MT-101.pdf for a detailed description of how to do it right. I'm working on improving the decoupling on the Arachnio to address these problems.
Please support the Arachnio on Kickstarter http://https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/logos-electro/arachnio and check out this Arachnio family picture:
