NodeMCU ESP-32S¶

The NodeMCU ESP-32S is one of the development board created by NodeMcu to evaluate the ESP-WROOM-32 module. It is based on the ESP32 microcontroller that boasts Wifi, Bluetooth, Ethernet and Low Power support all in a single chip.

Pin Mapping¶

Reference for NodeMCU ESP-32S can be found here.

Flash Layout¶

The internal flash of the ESP32 module is organized in a single flash area with pages of 4096 bytes each. The flash starts at address 0x00000, but many areas are reserved for Esp32 IDF SDK and Zerynth VM. There exist two different layouts based on the presence of BLE support.

In particular, for non-BLE VMs:

For BLE VMs:

Device Summary¶

• Microcontroller: Tensilica 32-bit Single-/Dual-core CPU Xtensa LX6
• Operating Voltage: 3.3V
• Input Voltage: 7-12V
• Digital I/O Pins (DIO): 28
• Analog Input Pins (ADC): 8
• Analog Outputs Pins (DAC): 2
• UARTs: 3
• SPIs: 2
• I2Cs: 3
• Flash Memory: 4 MB
• SRAM: 520 KB
• Clock Speed: 240 Mhz
• Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n/e/i:
  • Integrated TR switch, balun, LNA, power amplifier and matching network
  • WEP or WPA/WPA2 authentication, or open networks

Power¶

Power to the NodeMCU ESP-32S is supplied via the on-board USB Micro B connector or directly via the “VIN” pin. The power source is selected automatically.

The device can operate on an external supply of 6 to 20 volts. If using more than 12V, the voltage regulator may overheat and damage the device. The recommended range is 7 to 12 volts.

Connect, Register, Virtualize and Program¶

The NodeMCU ESP-32S comes with a serial-to-usb chip on board that allows programming and opening the UART of the ESP32 module. Drivers may be needed depending on your system (Mac or Windows) and can be download from the official Espressif documentation page. In Linux systems, the NodeMCU ESP-32S should work out of the box.

Once connected on a USB port, if drivers have been correctly installed, the NodeMCU ESP-32S device is recognized by Zerynth Studio. The next steps are:

• Select the NodeMCU ESP-32S on the Device Management Toolbar (disambiguate if necessary);
• Register the device by clicking the “Z” button from the Zerynth Studio;
• Create a Virtual Machine for the device by clicking the “Z” button for the second time;
• Virtualize the device by clicking the “Z” button for the third time.

After virtualization, the NodeMCU ESP-32S is ready to be programmed and the Zerynth scripts uploaded. Just Select the virtualized device from the “Device Management Toolbar” and click the dedicated “upload” button of Zerynth Studio.

Firmware Over the Air update (FOTA)¶

The Firmware Over the Air feature allows to update the device firmware at runtime. Zerynth FOTA in the NodeMCU ESP-32S device is available for bytecode and VM.

Flash Layout is shown in table below:

For BLE VMs:

For Esp32 based devices, the FOTA process is implemented mostly by using the provided system calls in the IDF framework. The selection of the next VM to be run is therefore a duty of the Espressif bootloader; the bootloader however, does not provide a failsafe mechanism to revert to the previous VM in case the currently selected one fails to start. At the moment this lack of a safety feature can not be circumvented, unless by changing the bootloader. As soon as Espressif relases a new IDF with such feature, we will release updated VMs.

Secure Firmware¶

Secure Firmware feature allows to detect and recover from malfunctions and, when supported, to protect the running firmware (e.g. disabling the external access to flash or assigning protected RAM memory to critical parts of the system).

This feature is strongly platform dependent; more information at Secure Firmware - ESP32 section.

Zerynth secure socket¶

To be able to use zerynth secure socket on esp32 boards native_mbedtls: true must be used instead of zerynth_ssl: true in the project.yml file.

Missing features¶

Not all IDF features have been included in the Esp32 based VMs. In particular the following are missing but will be added in the near future:

• Touch detection support