ESP-01 is low cost esp8266 module, with built-in WIFI.

It was created as Arduino WIFI module, but It’s more powerful than an Arduino, than now if you need a little module to control a relay or some simple digital datalogger It’s the best solution.

Refer to the Article for all information

Programming process

This process is tedious, you must connect then remove connection and so on, and to use all pins It’s very tedious.

My solution to this problem is to create a programming board (I’m fan of service board).

The functionality is:

• External power source to give more ampere to the circuit (esp01 pins have very low ampere);
• a switch to select programming mode and than release the GPIO0 pin;
• 2 switch to activate RX and TX and than to grant the use of that pin for the circuit;
• a reset button to start programming.

My first need is to control all 4 pins for my project.

In the article you can find all usage information, here you can see a simple blink upload:

Here an example on how to use all 4 pins of the microcontroller

Here an example on how use 3 pins for mange led and one for serial debug