When I first heard about the ESP8266 in last year, I had no idea what to do with it. I'm now really interested in how easy it is to connect an Arduino to the Internet. Like others, I started by putting together a weather station on a breadboard and sending data to thingspeak.com. This leads to a very small stripboard layout and the software package that is needed.

Why stripboard rather than etch a PCB? A lot of good PCB layouts are out there. But I want to make something simple enough that anyone can do it at home. It's easy to get a soldering iron, stripboards, and parts. But it's often hard to etch a PCB. So, my task was to make the design on a stripboard that was the same size and worked as well as a PCB that had been etched. What functions does it have? Measure the temperature, the humidity, the pressure, and the amount of light. All the information to Thingspeak Arduino can turn on and off ESP8266 to save energy and add more digital IOs. Works on 5 to 12 V and much more.

Why do you need ESP8266 and Arduino? Each one has its own good points. When it comes to sensors, the Arduino is perfect. And the ESP8266 is great for connecting to the Internet. And if I want to save energy, I can turn off the Internet.

The weather functions are just one part of the app. Because the Arduino has the following sensor pinouts, you can use this board to measure almost

2x analogue, 6x digital I2C connections for WIRE 1x reset 1x click

1x stripboard 20x15 vertical 1x ESP01 1x Arduino Mini Clone (this layout Arduino Mini, I chose the clone version because the position of A4 and A5 is more stripboard friendly compared to the official one) DHT11 or DHT22 1 shield for a BMP180 (the one with 4 pins) 1x sensor shield for temperature and light

3x 100 µF (*) Z-diode 1x 3.3 V Resistor: 1x 10 kΩ 1x 360 Ω 1x 150 Ω (for red LED) (for red LED)

1x 3.3 V 1x 5 V (*) LEDs: 1x red 1 green or one with two colors

1x 12x1 female

1x 6x1 female 2x 5x1 female 5x 4x1 female 1x 3x1 female 1x 2x1 female 3x 3x1 male (*) 1x 4x1 male 1x 4x1 male 90° 1x 3x1 male 90°

You can get rid of one of these parts if you only want a 5V version. First, cut the stripes out of the stripboard where the drawing shows. Use the bottom view picture to make this easier. At the end, count your cuts to make sure you don't connect them wrong. The headers will be soldered to the board in the next step. Pay attention to the heading in the bottom right corner. You also have to solder the wire on the left side into the same hole. Connect every wire to the PCB. It doesn't matter what colour they are. For me, they are only a guide. In the top right corner, one of the holes is used twice. So the resistor also needs to be soldered in at this step. Because the two AMS1117 are surface-mounted parts, you have to get them ready to be mounted through holes. To do this, you need to solder each to a 3x1 male header. After that, it will be easy to put them on the PCB with the resistors, capacitors, and Z-diode. LEDs are hooked up to the male header. The resistor goes on the leg that is green. So, you're here. The PCB has all of the parts. Do the following tests first (with a multimeter) to make sure everything works well and there are no short circuits or high voltages:

1. Check how much resistance there is between (1) and (3). Should be close to 1 k (but not less!). 2. Find out how much resistance there is between (1) and all ground (GND, G) pins. Except for (13)-G, they should all be 0. 3. Connect a 9-volt battery to pin (1) (GND, -) and pin (3) (+). 4. Check the voltages of 5 V on pins 2, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 14. 5. Measure 3.3 V voltages on pin (15). If the board passed all five tests, the components can be put on. Yes, hardware and software are both important. Nodemcu is what makes the ESP8266 connect to the Internet. The Arduino does everything that has to do with the sensors. Arduino and ESP8266 talk to each other through a serial connection, and Arduino uses the SoftwareSerial Library to talk to the ESP8266. The Arduino software has two modes: standard and low power. The standard version only turns on the ESP01 once and sends data to thingspeak.com at short intervals. The low-power one also sends the date regularly, but it does so less often. The ESP01 is turned off between two sending’s.