ESP stand alone programming

PlatformIO IDE
4

People have already solved similiar type of problems before: See Upload littlefs.bin to ESP8266 boards.

The firmware files PlatformIO generates will be saved in .pio/build/<environment name>/firmware.bin.

With ESP32 you have to careful though, as not only your application image gets flashed technically, but also the bootloader, the partition table and other things. You can see exactly how PlatformIO flashes the binary for your project when you invoke the project task Advanced → Verbose Upload.

For example, with

[env:esp32dev]
platform = espressif32
board = esp32dev
framework = arduino

that is

CURRENT: upload_protocol = esptool
BeforeUpload(["upload"], [".pio/build/esp32dev/firmware.bin"])
Auto-detected: /dev/ttyACM0
"/home/max/.platformio/penv/bin/python" "/home/max/.platformio/packages/tool-esptoolpy/esptool.py" --chip esp32 --port "/dev/ttyACM0" --baud 460800 --before default_reset --after hard_reset write_flash -z --flash_mode dio --flash_freq 40m --flash_size 4MB 0x1000 /home/max/temp/simple_esp32/.pio/build/esp32dev/bootloader.bin 0x8000 /home/max/temp/simple_esp32/.pio/build/esp32dev/partitions.bin 0xe000 /home/max/.platformio/packages/framework-arduinoespressif32/tools/partitions/boot_app0.bin 0x10000 .pio/build/esp32dev/firmware.bin
esptool.py v4.4
Serial port /dev/ttyACM0
Connecting.......

So the critical command is basically

esptool.py --chip esp32 --port “/dev/ttyACM0” --baud 460800 --before default_reset --after hard_reset write_flash -z --flash_mode dio --flash_freq 40m --flash_size 4MB 0x1000 […]bootloader.bin 0x8000 […]partitions.bin 0xe000 […]boot_app0.bin 0x10000 […]firmware.bin

(on Windows, /dev/ttyACM0 will be a COM device, aka the serial port where the dev board is connected to, like COM9)

If you the hardware is non-changing, then details like flash mode, frequency and isze will always be same.

So what people usually do is:

  • Save every involved individual binary file
    or
  • combine all binary files (with filler data in between the non-defined addresses) to one single flash image

Then they usually convert the esptool.py tool to a native Windows Exe file to lose the dependency on having the customer install Python (and all esptool dependencies). They then write a batch (.bat) file tha invokes the flashing command (aka esptool.exe ) and bundle the new binaries in that folder.

The alternative to that is to use Espressif’s official GUI flashing tool avaiable from Tools | Espressif Systems.

image

image
image426×678 13.9 KB

which, as expected, wants you to give it all binary files it is supposed to flash along with the address where it’s supposed to go.

There’s also more GUI download tools like GitHub - Grovkillen/ESP_Easy_Flasher: A wrapper for ESPTOOL.exe + PowerShell to make flashing/programming ESP Easy units more streamline, these might expect the merged imaged though.

Note that the image merging can be facilitated through either the Espressif GUI after filling in the binaries and addresses

image
image608×682 25 KB

or esptool.py, too.

max@XXXXX:~/temp/simple_esp32$ source ~/.platformio/penv/bin/activate
(penv) max@XXXXXX:~/temp/simple_esp32$ ~/.platformio/packages/tool-esptoolpy/esptool.py --help
usage: esptool [-h] [--chip {auto,esp8266,esp32,esp32s2,esp32s3beta2,esp32s3,esp32c3,esp32c6beta,esp32h2beta1,esp32h2beta2,esp32c2,esp32c6}] [--port PORT] [--baud BAUD]
               [--before {default_reset,usb_reset,no_reset,no_reset_no_sync}] [--after {hard_reset,soft_reset,no_reset,no_reset_stub}] [--no-stub] [--trace] [--override-vddsdio [{1.8V,1.9V,OFF}]]
               [--connect-attempts CONNECT_ATTEMPTS]
               {load_ram,dump_mem,read_mem,write_mem,write_flash,run,image_info,make_image,elf2image,read_mac,chip_id,flash_id,read_flash_status,write_flash_status,read_flash,verify_flash,erase_flash,erase_region,merge_bin,get_security_info,version}
               ...

esptool.py v4.4 - Espressif chips ROM Bootloader Utility

positional arguments:
  {load_ram,dump_mem,read_mem,write_mem,write_flash,run,image_info,make_image,elf2image,read_mac,chip_id,flash_id,read_flash_status,write_flash_status,read_flash,verify_flash,erase_flash,erase_region,merge_bin,get_security_info,version}
                        Run esptool.py {command} -h for additional help
    load_ram            Download an image to RAM and execute
    dump_mem            Dump arbitrary memory to disk
    read_mem            Read arbitrary memory location
    write_mem           Read-modify-write to arbitrary memory location
    write_flash         Write a binary blob to flash
    run                 Run application code in flash
    image_info          Dump headers from an application image
    make_image          Create an application image from binary files
    elf2image           Create an application image from ELF file
    read_mac            Read MAC address from OTP ROM
    chip_id             Read Chip ID from OTP ROM
    flash_id            Read SPI flash manufacturer and device ID
    read_flash_status   Read SPI flash status register
    write_flash_status  Write SPI flash status register
    read_flash          Read SPI flash content
    verify_flash        Verify a binary blob against flash
    erase_flash         Perform Chip Erase on SPI flash
    erase_region        Erase a region of the flash
    merge_bin           Merge multiple raw binary files into a single file for later flashing
    get_security_info   Get some security-related data
    version             Print esptool version
1 Like