ESP8266 Color Weather Station has white screen

Question

I ordered the Squix ESP8266 Color Weather Station and it did work (sort of) when I received it.

I was able to only program my WiFi and Timezone.

It would only display the time. There was NO weather data displayed due to being unable to program an API key.

Since Weather Underground is no longer issuing API keys I have been trying to use the guide located here:

https://blog.squix.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/esp8266weatherstationgettingstartedguide-20180530.pdf

From the first time I finished the update, the screen is completely white.

It does not even appear to boot.

I have tried a couple different versions of the weather station sketch from GitHub but every time I get the white screen.

Like I said before, the unit does not even seem to "boot", it just gives the white screen as soon as I plug it in.

It appears to flash fine without any errors.

Any help would be appreciated.

Comments

Let's establish what you've got:
- ThingPulse Color Kit, what is your order number i.e. when did you order it?
- it used to work but just w/o weather data from Wunderground
  -> it's unlikely we're looking at a hardware defect
  -> also, it's probably correctly soldered

What irritates me is you mentioning the PDF guide for the Classic Kit. The guide you should be following is this: https://docs.thingpulse.com/guides/wifi-color-display-kit/

Am I missing something?

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Hello,

I'm sorry for irritating you. That was not intended.

I purchased a fully assembled unit from Ebay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Esp8266-weather-station-wifi-wunderground-open-source-github-AZSMZ-TFT-2-4-TOUCH/263682504856?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

I also likely pasted the incorrect PDF as I likey was not following that guide exactly.

At this point, I am attempting to reprogram the unit for OpenWeatherMap. It did boot completely fine out of the box and I was able to connect to my WiFi network but not display weather data. It had all "?" where the data would have been.

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Hi Glen4Cindy

We can only give support for our own hardware. This is a clone by someone else. Please contact your seller to ask for support. You know, we invest a lot of time developing hardware and software, then cloners try to make a buck from our hard work and in the end we are supposed to give support... This hardly seems fair to me...

Answer 1

Have you monitored the serial point in your IDE to see what diagnostic messages are being displayed? This will give you a good indication of where things are going wrong, or if all appears normal then it points to a wiring problem.

Comments

Forgive my newbie question.

I'm using Arduino IDE, and loading all the libraries mentioned and have tried a couple of different versions of "sketches" for the weather station.

Can you tell me how to "monitor the serial point"?

As I mentioned above, this was purchased as an assembled kit from an Ebay seller and booted and functioned when received, BUT, no weather data was displayed. Only the time was displayed. Where the weather data and moon phases should have been was only "?", likely due to having no Wunderground API key programmed into the setup.

Thanks in advance.

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Tools, Serial Monitor

I suspect your board is not a genuine ThingPulse board if purchased via eBay and my experience is these boards are not correctly designed and give problems. Also, frequently they use different pin-outs /connections and so do-not function with stock ThingPulse code. Does the supplier have their own code, most do, e.g. LilyGo.

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I appreciate your help G6EJD.

With this board being "pre-assembled" I didn't realize I was getting myself into a mess.

I had previously tried to use 2 items from Adafruit, there Huzzah board with ESP8266 and pins already soldered on and their FeatherWing 2.4 TFT which has headers. I used their code which was updated from the Wunderground to OpenWeatherStation. The flash did the same thing. When I plugged it in, the screen turned white.

This kit seems to use code on Github from "cxandy/esp8266-weather-station-color" which still has the Wundergound code in it.

I'll just use this as a learning experience and see where the flashes are going wrong since the same thing is happening to two different kits.

I can understand ThingPulse's reluctance to provide support. I really thought I was buying something that was just assembled.

Thanks again for the leads you have provided.

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Cxandy is indeed a clone board supplier aka LilyGo. You should inspect their code pin outs for the display and compare with the ThingPulse variants, I suspect this is where the differences are on the SPI bus connections. Have you tried a simple display test using say Adafruit library examples?

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What size is your screen?
Check the source code here:
38 //#define BOARD SQUIX
39 //#define BOARD AZSMZ_1_1
40 #define BOARD AZSMZ_1_6

And make it look like this. i.e define SQUIUX board
38 #define BOARD SQUIX
39 //#define BOARD AZSMZ_1_1
40 //#define BOARD AZSMZ_1_6

this changes pins used.

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Thanks so much for your direction.

The screen is 240x320.

I made sure those lines where present, and at one point I did have output from the monitor serial and it indicated that it was connecting to my wireless network and attempting to initialize the display.

At this point, I have honestly tried several different variations of "color weather station" code I'm beginning to lose track of what I have tried and have not.

I'm sure at this point it must be the board variation that apparently worked with whatever code they originally used. The WiFi module says ESP-12E ESP8266MOD on it and is soldered to the circuit board on the back of the screen. The paper that came with the board has your #define instructions with it and refers to the cxcandy git hub source. I've tried to use that just to get the board back to what it was before.

I'm certainly learning alot here! But, I'm going to keep trying!

Thanks again G6EJD for all your help.

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Did you make sure line 38 is uncommented the other commented out so it’s the right board type. Try the Adafruit ili9341 display test to ensure it’s working would be useful.

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So, I certainly think I must be using the wrong code.

The version of the color weather station that has the Open Weather Map code in it has the following lines you referenced which I believe must refer to a different board:

32 // Pins for the ILI9341

33 #define TFT_DC D2
34 #define TFT_CS D1
35 #define TFT_LED D8


37 #define HAVE_TOUCHPAD
38 #define TOUCH_CS D3
39 #define TOUCH_IRQ  D4

The code that does have the lines you referenced has the Wunderground code and quite a bit of the rest of the code with "void" in it and I got a compiler error.

I tried the example Adafruit ili9341 graphics test and at the end of the flash got a white screen as well.  I suppose the other piece is how the Arduino software is setup to program the board.

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I've finally achieved success!

I am using a Feather Huzzah ESP8266 with FeatherWing from  Adafruit.

No problems flashing at all.

I'm still going to work at getting the other one working but, this is very satisfying. :)

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I have the Adafruit version and downloaded the latest version from Squix78. I have the problem with the unit hanging at "Updating Time".

What did you do different?

Below is the output from the serial monitor:

cksum 0x2d
13:50:08.790 -> v951aeffa
13:50:08.790 -> ~ld
13:50:08.790 -> 13
13:50:09.093 -> Connected...Initializing touch screen...
13:50:09.093 -> Mounting file system...
13:50:09.266 -> SPIFFS opened: OK
13:50:09.443 -> ................................................................................................................................................

The dotted line goes forever.

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I worked extensively with the seller of the board I purchased.

He sent me several revisions, the last of which finally worked.

He would only provide finished .bin files not the complete versions I needed to compile my own.

The case I printed didn't print completely properly so I haven't put mine to full-time use just yet, but it did finally work.