IoT Builder – Building and Using an ESP8266 VFP Server

Introduction
This document describes the steps for configuring a WeMOS D1 Mini (ESP8266) board as a VFP (Virtual
Front Panel) server for use with Proteus IoT Builder for Arduino. A similar procedure will also work for
other ESP8266 based modules such as the Node MCU provided that they have a micro USB connector.
A slightly different procedure is needed for the ESP13 shield – please see the additional information at
the end of this document.
Note that the ESP8266 is used as an IoT Co-Processor for the Arduino; the user’s application runs on the
AVR chip, not the ESP8266. This allows it make full use of the wide range of shields and libraries that are
available for the standard Arduino Uno and Mega boards, whilst also having access to the ESP8266 flash
based file store (SPIFFS).
The hardware required consists of:
• WeMOS D1 Mini board c/w SIL headers
• Arduino Prototyping Shield c/w mini breadboard
• Connecting wires
• Arduino Uno
The steps to be carried out are as follows:
• Solder the SIL headers to the WeMOS D1 mini
• Program the WeMOS D1 with the Vfp8266 firmware
• Configure the Vfp8266 firmware to connect your WiFi network.
• Wire the WeMOS D1 to the Arduino Prototype Shield
• Attach the Prototype Shield to the Arduino Hardware
Once these steps have been completed, you can upload the appliance firmware and resources from
Proteus IoT Builder over the WiFi connection. The ESP8266 will act as an ICSP for the Arduino and also
provides a telnet debug channel and FTP access to the file store.
We will now look at each step in more detail.
Soldering the SIL headers
The WeMOS D1 mini is supplied as a simple PCB module along with a number of different PCB
connectors.

In order to mount it on the mini breadboard, the two SIL connector strips should be soldered to the
underside of the D1 module as shown above.
Programming the WeMOS D1 with the Vfp8266 firmware
As supplied, the WeMOS D1 is loaded with the standard DOIT firmware which operates as a serial-
>TCPIP interface. However, before the module can be used with IoT Builder, this needs to be replaced
with the Vfp8266 firmware. Since the re-flashing process requires a connection to the micro-USB slot,
this step is most easily performed before the module is mounted on the prototyping shield.
The Vfp8266 binaries can be found within your Proteus installation at
VSM Studio/drivers/Arduino/Vfp8266/firmware/VfpServer.ino.d1_mini.bin
VSM Studio/drivers/Arduino/Vfp8266/firmware/VfpServer.ino.ESP13shield.bin
Different binaries are needed due to differences in the connection of the built in LED.
To upload it to the ESP8266 flash you will need the NodeMCU flasher utility which is available from here:
https://github.com/nodemcu/nodemcu-flasher
You should download the exe file from the Win32/Release or Win64/Release folder according to the
version of Windows that you are running.
Connect the WeMOS D1 to a USB port on your PC with a micro-USB cable. This should cause the
installation of a serial port driver for the CH340 FDTI chip and then the creation of a new COM port.
Now run the ESP8266Flasher.exe program. It should find the COM port that the ESP8266 has created
and display a screen similar to the one below.

Click Config and modify the settings as shown below. You are telling it to flash the contents of the single
VfpServer.ini.xxx.bin file to location 0x00000. Make sure that only one checkbox is ticked.

Go back to the Operation screen and click the Flash button. If all is well then you should see a QR code
and a blue progress bar as the new firmware is loaded into the ESP8266.
When this process has completed, press the reset button on the WeMOS D1 (or power cycle it) to
reboot and it should then create a unique WiFi Access point with an SSID such as ‘ESP8266_528854’.
Also, the LED on the ESP8266 module should start blinking at about 2Hz. This is the end user
configuration mechanism and allows a user of your appliance to connect it to their own WiFi network.
However, for our purposes here we need it to facilitate programming of the Arduino from within
Proteus.
Configuring the Vfp8266 Firmware
With the ESP8266 successfully re-flashed, you can connect your PC’s WiFi to the temporary AP that it
has created. If you then point a web browser to the IP address 192.168.4.1 you should see a screen
similar to the one below:

Click Configure WiFi and select your main WiFi network from the list. You will also need to enter the
WiFi password if such is required:

If this screen does not show properly the first time, try refreshing page in your browser.
The 3 fields at the bottom allow configuration of the appliance name, a time (NTP) server and a time
offset in hours. You should set this last value to match your current time zone.
When you are done, click save. The ESP8266 LED should blink for a short while and then become steady.
This indicates a successful connection to your WiFi network and you are now ready to wire up the
hardware.
Note that if the appliance fails to connect to the configured WiFi network at start up, it will
automatically enter the end-user configuration mode. This makes it possible to re-configure the WiFi
settings at a new location, or if either the SSID or password for your network is changed.
Wiring the WeMOS D1 mini to the Arduino Prototype Shield
Disconnect the WeMOS D1 from your PC and insert it into the mini breadboard. Then, use the
connecting wires to link it to the Arduino terminals. The connections to be made are as follows:
WeMOS D1 Arduino Uno
GND GND
+5V +5V
RX TX
TX RX
SCK/D5/GPIO14 SCK/IO13
MOSI/D7/GPIO13 MOSI/IO11
MISO/D6/GPIO12 MISO/IO12
D3/GPIO0 RST
When this stage is completed, physical hardware should look something like the version on the left:

Alternatively, you can dispense with the mini breadboard and make a fully soldered solution as shown
centre and right. This will be considerably more robust but you won’t be able to use the WeMOS D1 or
the Prototype Shield for anything else.
Attach the Prototype Shield to the Arduino Hardware
The final stage of this assembly process is to plug the Prototyping Shield onto the Arduino Uno.
Firstly you will need to disable the on board USB->Serial interface on the Uno. Otherwise the USB->Serial
chip on the WeMOS D1 will not be able to communicate with the ESP8266. This is achieved by
connecting a jumper onto its ICSP connector as shown below left:

If you are wanting to use additional hardware shields such as the Grove Shield, this needs to sit between
the Arduino and the prototyping shield, as shown on the right.
Either way, the completed system can be powered by the micro-USB on the WeMOS D1, the standard
USB on the Arduino or the power jack on the Arduino.
Uploading the Appliance Firmware from Proteus IoT Builder
The hardware is now ready to be programmed from Proteus. Whereas the previous steps need to be
carried out just the once, this last step can be repeated as many times as you like during the process of
developing the appliance firmware. Of course, you can also simulate the appliance within Proteus VSM
so, in most circumstances you would expect to deploy to the real hardware only right at the end of the
software development process.
For the purposes of this document, we shall make use of an existing sample design. Open a copy of
Proteus and then click Open Sample. Enter ‘ESP8266’ into the keywords and open the ‘ESP8266 – Blink
an LED’ project.
Make sure that your assembled hardware is powered up and connected to the same WiFi network as
your PC. The ESP8266 LED should be on and not blinking.
Click the Visual Designer tab and open Build/Project Settings from the menu.

You will be programming the Arduino (AVR) via the ESP8266 module so the Programmer should be set
to ESP8266. Assuming your Arduino board is an Uno, then the Interface should be set to ESP8266 on
Arduino Uno. Finally you need to specify the host IP address for the ESP8266 board. Fortunately, the
Vfp8266 firmware announces itself via MDNS (aka Zeroconf or Bonjour) and so Proteus should be able
to discover it automatically, as shown above. Once you’ve made these selections you can click OK.
Then select Build/Upload from the menus or click the Upload icon. Proteus will transfer the resource
files to the ESP8266 flash storage via FTP and then it will use a local copy of AVRDUDE to program the
AVR firmware via a network serial protocol. The ESP8266 LED will blink rapidly during this second stage.
Assuming that all is well, you should get a status report something like this:
You can then try out the appliance either by pointing a web browser at its IP address, or by using the
Proteus IoT Controller mobile app. As with the programming port, the Vfp8266 firmware announces the
VFP service via MDNS so that the Proteus Iot Controller App can discover it.
If the programming fails, you should check that all the breadboard wiring is present and correct.
Remote Debugging
As with the VFP implementation for the Arduino Yun Shield, a significantly difficulty can arise whilst
developing the AVR firmware in that the AVR’s UART is used by the bridge connection to the co-
processor and there is therefore no easy means to view debugging output from the AVR code. What we
are saying here is that the normal Arduino technique of
Serial.println(“Some debug info…”);
cannot be used because the Serial port is in use via the Bridge class.
In simulation, this is solved by virtue of the Proteus VSM AVR model having a back-door which allows us
to send messages from the AVR code directly to the VSM simulation log. However this is clearly not
possible on real hardware.
Instead, the Vfp8266 firmware implements a remote debugging console via telnet. You can connect to
this using a standard telnet client such as PuTTy.
https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
Set up a telnet connection to the ESP8266 using the IP address discovered by Proteus whilst
programming.

Then, you can click Open to connect to your appliance. The debug terminal shows status messages
related to the Vfp8266 firmware including activity related to the web server such as files being sent to
the browser. In addition, it will display any messages sent via the debug method of the Server object in
the flowchart and/or the Console object in C++ code.
You can also reset the appliance to its default state (end user configuration mode) by entering the
command reset at the telnet prompt.
FTP Server
The Vfp8266 firmware operates a basic FTP server on port 21. The username is proteus and the
password is esp8266. This is used primarily by Proteus for uploading resources but it can also be used to
inspect or modify the contents of the ESP8266 (SPIFFS) filestore.
The FileZilla tool can be used to access the FTP server.
LED Blink patterns
The Vfp8266 firmware uses the built in blue LED on the WeMOS D1 module to indicate various
operating conditions.

Blink Pattern Speed Meaning

 2Hz End User WiFi Configuration Mode
 10 Hz AVR ISP programming in progress
   1Hz Waiting for remote-debug connection (up to 10s at start up)
1Hz Waiting for bridge connection from AVR (up to 5s at start up)
Steady WiFi connected, VFP Server up and running
Additional Information about the ESP-13 Shield Board
The ESP 13 shield contains an ESP8266, 3.3V power supply and interface electronics presented in the
form of an Arduino Shield board:

It is available from a number of websites for about $10 and provides another route to creating an
ESP8266 based VFP Server for use with Proteus IoT Builder.
https://www.tindie.com/products/doit/esp8266-esp-13-wifi-web-sever-shield-for-arduino/
In order to support ICSP of the Arduino, 4 hard wired connections are needed:
8266 Arduino
SCK/GPIO14 SCK/IO13
MOSI/GPIO13 MOSI/IO11
MISO/GPIO12 MISO/IO12
GPIO0 RST
In addition, this board is amenable to the addition of Arduino stacking connectors so that further
Arduino shields can be plugged in on top. The only Arduino I/O resources consumed in this configuration
are the Serial Port lines RX/TX.
An assembled prototype based on this board can be seen below.

However, one disadvantage with this board is that there is no micro USB connector so the initial
programming of the firmware must be performed using an FTDI (USB->TTL Serial) connector.
http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/Cables/USBTTLSerial.htm
Connect RX->TX and TX->RX on the 8266 side, also of course a GND between the FTDI and the ESP13. In
addition, GPIO0 must be tied low to enable programming from the ESP8266FLASHER program.
It is thus a somewhat more complicated process that working with a WeMOS D1 mini but results in a
prototype that looks and behaves very much like a Yun Shield but for a fraction of the cost.