ESP8266 shows garbage in serial monitor

Question

I have my ESP8266 connected via serial to USB like the image shows:

It worked just fine, however, when I tried flashing Blynk code

#define BLYNK_PRINT Serial    
#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <BlynkSimpleEsp8266.h>


char auth[] = "YourAuthToken";

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Blynk.begin(auth, "ssid", "pass");
}

void loop()
{
  Blynk.run();
}

It started outputting loads of garbage in the serial monitor, while Blynk app said ESP is not connected to network. I've tried since then flashing empty sketches or some other stuff, whatever I do, serial monitor shows loads of junk. I've tried changing modes, I've tried changing baud rates (57600 was default, and AT worked just fine).

Junk example:

  …ÕZªP‚,JHVYº—¡VÕ]­J*ÉW¥¡Õ¥Õ-”ªUŠQd®”¡âJ%H
!HiZÊIIRPÖuUPÒ‚BñZT¥ *EUeZB\)*EVjU!\©Š_¥¢”ÅVªqYiUµP”¬ÕPQT°*uH)HZKB*ÕXªuH!HBHBH…µEIâHBH!H©ªqY+hZVB\BH!HÊ*Òµe�qHBHBHŠ*i±…Z¦-hUµPÔ¬ÔPQT°*uH)H-KB*ÕXªuH!HBHBH…µE­B\!H!HBVªqY+iZVB\BH!HeVÒZ¢qHBHBHŠ*iQ…Z¦-hUµPÔ¬ÔPQTaYRB\    jHiBHªaYRB\BH!HBVªaYRB\BH!HBVªqY+iZVB\BH!HÊVÒZ¢qHBHBHŠ*i±Õ\V
iUµPÔ¬ÕPQT°*uH)H-JBVªaYRB\BH!H!VªaYR!\BHBH!Vªq©+hZW!\BHBHJ*iµE�âHBH!HŠ*i±…Z¦-hUµPÕ¬ÔPQTaYR!\    %Hi!HÕXªuH!HBHBH…µEIqHBHBH

Answer 1

I think the default baud rate of ESP8266 is 115200.

Answer 2

Try stabilizing the power source.

I parallel connected two AA batteries with the Arduino's 3.3V output and the garbage disappeared and my ESP8266-01 got much more stable.

Answer 3

In this case, it looks like your Serial Monitor just isn't set to the right baud rate with Both NL & CR. Even if your monitor is set to the default 115200 baud rate, you'll still see some garbage characters which leads into the next issue.

Using 115200 has too many instructions for the Arduino Uno to reliably decode characters and that's where the garbage is coming from.

The ESP8266 default baud is 115200, so you need to connect at the default rate and issue an AT command to reduce the baud rate to 9600.

Each time you reset, the ESP8266 goes back to the default baud rate.

Here's an example script that connects at the default baud rate and then reduces it to 9600. You'll connect the Serial Monitor at 9600. At the lower baud rate, I'm not getting any garbage characters.

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
SoftwareSerial ESPserial(2, 3); // RX | TX

void setup() 
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  ESPserial.begin(115200);
  ESPserial.println("AT+IPR=9600");
  delay(1000);
  ESPserial.end();
  // Start the software serial for communication with the ESP8266
  ESPserial.begin(9600);

  Serial.println("Ready");
  ESPserial.println("AT+GMR");
}

void loop() 
{
    // listen for communication from the ESP8266 and then write it to the serial monitor
    if ( ESPserial.available() )   {  Serial.write( ESPserial.read() );  }

    // listen for user input and send it to the ESP8266
    if ( Serial.available() )       {  ESPserial.write( Serial.read() );  }
}

An odd thing that happened to me is that I tried to use a baud rate of 4800 and I bricked one ESP8266 module. I don't know if that was a glitch or just a coincidence.

Answer 4

Have you also pulled up the ESP8266's reset pin? I don't know what effect not doing so might have, but the recommended connections I have read and followed include that. The RST and CH_PD pins are adjacent; they're easy to jumper together.

Answer 5

I had a similar problem with a NodeMCU ESP-12E (Amica v2) board... after pressing and releasing the RST button with Serial Monitor open & set to 115200 baud, it would display the boot message (starting with " ets Jan 8 2013, rst cause:2, boot mode(3,6)", and ending with "~ld"), then display gibberish when the program itself attempted to use Serial.print() or Serial.println().

It appears to be a strange bug related to NodeMCU itself, but the following work-around got Serial.print working for me:

1. Before using Serial.print() or Serial.println() for the first time in the program (setup() is probably a good place), do Serial.begin(74880);

2. Step 1 notwithstanding, set the baud rate in Serial Monitor to 115200.

My guess is that somewhere between the Arduino library and CP2102, a register value is being miscalculated (or mangled), and calling Serial.begin(74880) results in setting a register to the value that calling Serial.begin(115200) should have set it to.

Here's the page where I read about the bug: https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino/issues/4005