ESP32 wifi shield not found - with Metro 328 Arduino

[adafruit_support_bill]

I just checked, and verified there is continuity between all 4 pairs:

OK. That is as it should be.

I opened the CardInfo sketch from the Examples/SD folder. I changed the chip select line near the beginning of the program to match the wifi shield: (const int chipSelect = 10;)

The pin 10 chipSelect is for the WiFi. The chipSelect for the SD card on the shield is pin 4. Try the CardInfo sketch one more time with pin 4 for chipSelect.

[teppe]

Nope. I changed chipselect to = 4 and still get:

Initializing SD card...initialization failed. Things to check:
* is a card inserted?
* is your wiring correct?
* did you change the chipSelect pin to match your shield or module?

Is it time to send the shield back for replacement?

I was hoping to get it installed/running by this weekend, but that's obviously not happening.

Bummed,
-Tom

[adafruit_support_bill]

If either the SD or the ESP32 were responding, I'd suspect something on the shield. But you have confirmed that all the SPI signals are connected on the shield, but neither of the SPI devices on the board are responding. That tends to point towards a problem with the processor. Do you have access to another Arduino or compatible processor to test with?

[teppe]

Yes, I have another Arduino UNO board (see photos). I didn't test this UNO board earlier because the shield has a couple more header pins than this UNO. However, since you suggested swapping it out, I plugged the shield into the UNO with the extra pins just hanging over (2 pins on the Analog side of the board and 2 pins on the Digital side).

I then downloaded the ScanNetworks sketch, but there was an error downloading. I verified that the board assigned was Arduino UNO (same as before with the Metro) so I'm not sure how to solve this error:
avrdude: ser_open(): can't open device "\\.\COM3": The system cannot find the file specified.

At least with the Metro board I was able to download and run sketches. Is there something I need to change for the UNO board?

-Tom

[adafruit_support_bill]

The 2 extra pins are not a problem since they are not used by the shield.

avrdude: ser_open(): can't open device "\\.\COM3": The system cannot find the file specified.

Your UNO may have connected to your computer on a different COM port. The device manager on your computer should be able to tell you what port it is connected as.

[teppe]

I got my UNO board running. For some reason the UNO board grabbed COM4, whereas the Metro board was using COM3, so I simply changed the settings to COM4 for the UNO.
However, I still get the same failures when trying to run a sketch that uses the wifi shield.

First, I ran a simple sketch without using the wifi shield to prove that the UNO works properly. It worked fine (same as the Metro board).

Then I tried the ScanNetworks sketch using pin assignments:
#define SPIWIFI SPI // The SPI port
#define SPIWIFI_SS 10 // Chip select pin
#define ESP32_RESETN 5 // Reset pin
#define SPIWIFI_ACK 7 // a.k.a BUSY or READY pin
#define ESP32_GPIO0 6
The result is ................. Communication with WiFi module failed ........ (same as with Metro board)

I also tried the CardInfo sketch with const chipSelect = 4:
The result is ................ Initialization Failed ............ (same as with Metro board)

Please advise.
-Tom

[adafruit_support_bill]

OK. Let's try replacing the shield. Please contact [email protected] and be sure to include a link to this thread.

[teppe]

OK, I received a replacement wifi shield from Adafruit - thank you for that.

However, after soldering and installing it on my Arduino Uno boards, the wifi shield is still not recognized (same error as before). I opened the ScanNetworks example, changed the pin numbers to pin 10 for chip select, pin 5 for reset, and pin 7 for busy, downloaded it and get a message on the serial monitor saying wifi shield not found/installed. I tried it on both the Metro 328 board and my older blue UNO board, with the same results.

There is a difference with this new wifi shield, however. The SD reader is recognized, which wasn't the case with the previous wifi shield.

To troubleshoot this new shield, I inserted an SD card and opened the CardInfo sketch from the Examples/SD folder. I changed the chip select line near the beginning of the program to match the wifi shield: (const int chipSelect = 4;). I downloaded the sketch, and it says the SD card reader is recognized and wiring is correct (it also says I have a format issue, but that's because my mini-SD card is too large to format as a FAT32, so I'm working to rectify that).

Again, the good news is that it recognizes the SD card reader, which was not the case with the previous shield. However, the wifi function still doesn't work. The serial monitor says wifi shield not found/installed when running the ScanNetworks example.

In the Tools menu, I'm designating the board to be Arduino UNO. Is this correct? The reason I'm asking is because I noticed that there are other board options in Tools > Boards Manager that appear to be for the ESP32 shield. That's a bit confusing to me since you can't download directly to the ESP32 shield (you have to download to the UNO board).

I've attached a photo of the new replacement board. I think my soldering is getting better.

-Tom

[adafruit_support_bill]

The soldering looks good. And a working SD confirms that your SPI signals are fine.

there are other board options in Tools > Boards Manager that appear to be for the ESP32 shield.

Which options are those? Your code is running on the UNO and the UNO talks to the ESP32 via SPI, so UNO should be the correct board type.

[teppe]

While waiting for the replacement wifi shield, I hooked up a Metro Mini 328 (ADA2590) with an Airlift wifi FeatherWing (ADA4264). See photo.
Two interesting observations:

First, this FeatherWing setup is able to find both my home wifi networks when using the exact same ScanNetworks example sketch that the AirLift WiFi Shield (ADA4285) has failed with. The only difference is that the COM port for the Feather setup is COM5, whereas the larger UNO/AirLift setup uses COM4. In both cases, the assigned board is "Arduino UNO" and the pin assignments are 10 for chip select, 5 for reset, and 7 for busy.

Secondly, when I plugged in the "non-working" UNO/AirLift setup into a 5V power supply, a third network shows up on the FeatherWing serial monitor output, so the AirLift is apparently able to communicate with the FeatherWing. Here's the serial monitor output for the FeatherWing sketch when the UNO/AirLift is plugged in:

Scanning available networks...
** Scan Networks **
number of available networks:3
0) ESP_888861 Signal: -35 dBm Encryption: None
1) +++++ my home network one +++++ Signal: -66 dBm Encryption: WPA2
2) ++++ my home network two +++++ Signal: -72 dBm Encryption: WPA2

Hopefully this info will help.

-Tom

[adafruit_support_bill]

when I plugged in the "non-working" UNO/AirLift setup into a 5V power supply, a third network shows up on the FeatherWing serial monitor output, so the AirLift is apparently able to communicate with the FeatherWing.

That seems to indicate that the WiFi module is functioning. It is not clear why the UNO is not able to talk to it. I will check with some of the other engineer to see if they have any suggestions.

[adafruit2]

hmm, an UNO is very marginal for talking to airlift - im not sure it wont have memory issues...and those are intermittant... do you by chance have an M0 or M4 board you could try?

[teppe]

No, unfortunately I don't have an M0 or M4 board to try.

It's a bit puzzling why the Metro Mini interfaces with the FeatherWing without memory issues. Perhaps I should disconnect the AirLift shield and connect the FeatherWing to the UNO board with jumper wires, to test. And vise versa, I wonder if the AirLift shield works with the Metro Mini.

The reason I purchased the basic Metro board is because my application is simple, and since it's for a church food bank I wanted to keep the cost down. What I'm trying to do is to receive an SMTP email/text message when the electricity is out, so the food doesn't spoil in the freezers. The wifi in the food bank is on battery backup, so my plan was to use an Adafruit 500C charger to provide LiPo battery backup to power the UNO board with wifi shield so it can send an email/text in the event that the power goes out. The Arduino sketch would simply detect when the power to the 500C charger goes out, then send an email.

Perhaps there's a simpler way to do this? I see that you offer ESP32 boards that you can upload an Arduino sketch to? Like the HUZZAH32 - ESP32 Feather? Would that eliminate the need for an Arduino board? I'm new to this, so I'm open to suggestions.

-Tom

[adafruit2]

honestly the huzzah esp32 will work a lot better - it has built in battery charging!

[teppe]

For troubleshooting purposes, I connected the Airlift shield to a Metro Mini and found that it is not able to find any networks. During the ScanNetworks example it just hangs up, saying "WiFi Scanning Test" on the serial monitor. Note that this is a different error compared to the Metro 328/Airlift combo, which did not even find the wifi shield.

The interesting thing is that an ESP32 FeatherWing works great with both the Metro Mini and the full size Metro 328 (using both the ScanNetworks and WiFiWebClient examples). This makes me wonder if both the Airlift shields I've received are defective, since they don't work with either the Metro Mini or the full size Metro 328.

I've attached a photo of the Metro 328 attached to the ESP32 Feather, which works. I've also attached a hand-written PDF summary of the combinations I've tried, with results. I'm not sure what else to try.

-Tom