ESP8266 WiFi library

After several nights spent developing and tweaking I finally have a working ESP8266 WiFi library called WiFiEsp.
The main characteristic of the WiFiEsp library is that is fully compatible with the standard library for the Arduino WiFi shield. This gives a cheap alternative to the expensive WiFi shield to connect Arduino to the Internet.
It uses hardware Serial1 if exists or emulate a second serial port on pins 6 and 7.
You can download WiFiEsp library from GitHub.
Please give it a try and tell me what you think.

Here is a small sketch that connects to a WiFi network.

#include "WiFiEsp.h"

// Emulate Serial1 on pins 7/6 if not present
#ifndef HAVE_HWSERIAL1
#include "SoftwareSerial.h"
SoftwareSerial Serial1(6, 7); // RX, TX
#endif

char ssid[] = "Twim";            // your network SSID (name)
char pass[] = "12345678";        // your network password

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(115200);  // initialize serial for debugging
  Serial1.begin(9600);   // initialize serial for ESP
  WiFi.init(&Serial1);   // initialize ESP serial port

  if (WiFi.status() == WL_NO_SHIELD) {   // check for the presence of the shield
    Serial.println("WiFi shield not present");
    while (true);                        // don't continue:
  }
}

void loop()
{
  // attempt to connect to Wifi network:
  while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
    Serial.print("Attempting to connect to WPA SSID: ");
    Serial.println(ssid);
    // Connect to WPA/WPA2 network:
    WiFi.begin(ssid, pass);
  }

  // you're connected now, so print out the data:
  Serial.println("You're connected to the network");
  
  IPAddress ip = WiFi.localIP();
  Serial.print("IP Address: ");
  Serial.println(ip);

  delay(10000);
}

Beating heart with Arduino and a MAX7219 8x8 LED matrix

This is a very simple project to display a beating heart using and Arduino board and a 8x8 LED matrix driven by a MAX7219 chip.

The wiring is very simple.

• MAX7219 VCC pin > Arduino 5V pin
• MAX7219 GND pin > Arduino GND pin
• MAX7219 DIN pin > Arduino pin 2
• MAX7219 CS pin > Arduino pin 3
• MAX7219 CLOCK pin > Arduino pin 4

The Arduino sketch is not using any library so this is also good to understand how to directly drive the MAX7219 chip through registers.

int ANIMDELAY = 100;  // animation delay, deafault value is 100
int INTENSITYMIN = 0; // minimum brightness, valid range [0,15]
int INTENSITYMAX = 8; // maximum brightness, valid range [0,15]

int DIN_PIN = 2;      // data in pin
int CS_PIN = 3;       // load (CS) pin
int CLK_PIN = 4;      // clock pin

// MAX7219 registers
byte MAXREG_DECODEMODE = 0x09;
byte MAXREG_INTENSITY  = 0x0a;
byte MAXREG_SCANLIMIT  = 0x0b;
byte MAXREG_SHUTDOWN   = 0x0c;
byte MAXREG_DISPTEST   = 0x0f;

const unsigned char heart[] =
{
  B01100110,
  B11111111,
  B11111111,
  B11111111,
  B01111110,
  B00111100,
  B00011000,
  B00000000
};



void setup ()
{
  pinMode(DIN_PIN, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(CLK_PIN, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(CS_PIN, OUTPUT);

  // initialization of the MAX7219
  setRegistry(MAXREG_SCANLIMIT, 0x07);
  setRegistry(MAXREG_DECODEMODE, 0x00);  // using an led matrix (not digits)
  setRegistry(MAXREG_SHUTDOWN, 0x01);    // not in shutdown mode
  setRegistry(MAXREG_DISPTEST, 0x00);    // no display test
  setRegistry(MAXREG_INTENSITY, 0x0f & INTENSITYMIN);

  // draw hearth
  setRegistry(1, heart[0]);
  setRegistry(2, heart[1]);
  setRegistry(3, heart[2]);
  setRegistry(4, heart[3]);
  setRegistry(5, heart[4]);
  setRegistry(6, heart[5]);
  setRegistry(7, heart[6]);
  setRegistry(8, heart[7]);
}


void loop ()
{
  // second beat
  setRegistry(MAXREG_INTENSITY, 0x0f & INTENSITYMAX);
  delay(ANIMDELAY);
  
  // switch off
  setRegistry(MAXREG_INTENSITY, 0x0f & INTENSITYMIN);
  delay(ANIMDELAY);
  
  // second beat
  setRegistry(MAXREG_INTENSITY, 0x0f & INTENSITYMAX);
  delay(ANIMDELAY);
  
  // switch off
  setRegistry(MAXREG_INTENSITY, 0x0f & INTENSITYMIN);
  delay(ANIMDELAY*6);
}


void setRegistry(byte reg, byte value)
{
  digitalWrite(CS_PIN, LOW);

  putByte(reg);   // specify register
  putByte(value); // send data

  digitalWrite(CS_PIN, LOW);
  digitalWrite(CS_PIN, HIGH);
}

void putByte(byte data)
{
  byte i = 8;
  byte mask;
  while (i > 0)
  {
    mask = 0x01 << (i - 1);        // get bitmask
    digitalWrite( CLK_PIN, LOW);   // tick
    if (data & mask)               // choose bit
      digitalWrite(DIN_PIN, HIGH); // send 1
    else
      digitalWrite(DIN_PIN, LOW);  // send 0
    digitalWrite(CLK_PIN, HIGH);   // tock
    --i;                           // move to lesser bit
  }
}