Let's Control It

Hi,

I bought a couple of simple sonoff devices on eBay recently.

I have flashed many and various generic ESP8266 (IE non Sonoff) devices and have 16 running in the house at the moment, so I have a bit of experience here.

These two sonoffs are a different kettle of fish however. The first one took many attempts to flash before I was eventually successful. The second has so far beaten me after many many attempts to flash it with espeasy.

Initially I wanted to install a mega version but in desperation I eventually fell back to R120. I have used the R120 flash tool and the node red flash tool, both of which I have had good experience with in the past.

The trouble I run into has the flash sequence initiate and continue for a time but only once to date completing. Most of the time I get 5 to 75% through the flash sequence when the loader stops with no particular errors evident in the logs.

I am questioning the health of both of these units. How are ppls experience generally with Sonoff devices coming from Chinese eBay sources ? How about the vendor of mine in particular?

Thoughts and suggestions welcome.

Cheers,

Brian H.

Hi Brian,
I've used (i.e. flashed) a number of these In-Line Sonoff switches.
Sometimes I find one of the switches needs a few 'go's before the WiFi access point comes up.

I did have a LOT of problems flashing Sonoff S20 units until I realised they use a different microcontroller chip.

You might find using Grovkillen's flasher worth a try.

https://github.com/Grovkillen/ESP_Easy_Flasher/releases

Cheers from David

Can you also try the "PUYA" build for these?
I have seen other reports of new Sonoff's which use PUYA chips, or at least they have flash chips that act the same way as those PUYA ones.

Thanks guys, 2 excellent suggestions.

Unfortunately neither made any difference to the behavior of the Sonoff device when I attempt flashing.

Cheers,

Brian H.

Hi Brian,
If all you are doing with the In-Line Sonoff is using it as a simple switch, then you could try flashing it with Tasmota.

https://github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Tasmota

I use ESP Easy on all my WeMos D1 Mini devices and Tasmota on all my SonOff devices.

I use the SonOff devices around the house for turning lights on/off - which is a dead simple task.

One of the advantages of using Tasmota on the In-Line SonOff switch is that you can do OTA updates (one you have installed Tasmota).
It's a two-stage process.
Re-flash with a minimal version of the firmware, then re-flash with the full-blown version.
Full details are on the Tasmota website.

Hope this helps.

Cheers from David.

Thanks for the suggestion Dave but I doubt I'd be any more successful flashing Tasmoda onto these devices as the flash process it self seems to be broken.

I think at least one of them is headed for the bin out back.

Cheers,

Brian H