A search on the designer's name turned up a few posts by people working with this board. This post was the most useful one I found. I don't have this shield and haven't tested this poster's instructions, but it seems worth trying:
Hi! Finally back here, more enlightened! :D I have finally done some
stuff with the 8266 shield. I just wanted to share it with you all.
Since I know I wanted all this before I started. I write all this a
little bit as a "for dummies" just to make sure every step is
included. So to be more precise, I use a Arduino uno with a (se
below).
1: (identifying) The shield is a "ESP8266 ESP-12E UART WIFI Wireless
Shield for Arduino UNO R3" (from Ebay). Since there seems to be none
documentation about this board, hopfully this will help you. I think
there was some pictures before on this thread. On my board it states:
"Arduino ESP8266 Wifi shield. Version 0.9 by WangTongze." (and 1.0..
I've got two)
Here is a good link to identify which ESP8266 module you got if you
want to know exacly what you got (if it is a different wifi board) :
wiki/doku.php?id=esp8266-module-family
There a 4 DIP switches on this board are numbered from 1-4. To be
honest I really don't know what 1 and 2 is. But my guess is that you
can use TTL levels on TX & RX opposed to 3.3 which the 8266 module
uses directly. These two are always set to DOWN for me. Second though,
if so, I might set them to UP when using Arduino. I usually play
around with the board with a USB to 232 converter when testing. The
other two, 3-4, are connected to GPIO 0 and something else xD. I
really doesn't matter really. All I know, that I set these to UP to
start a firmware update. Here is a good link that might be somewhat
equal to what the shield has implemented.
http://blog.falafel.com/how-to-wire-the ... ogramming/
2: (using Arduino with the shield) So everywhere, including this
thread states that Arduino UNO doesn't handle the software emulated
serial very good at high speeds. That is true :D So I got it to work
perfectly with a baud rate 9600. What I did was to find a firmware
that has default baud rate 9600 from AI thinker. I never really got
the baud change to work. AT+CIOBAUD=9600 never got stuck after a reset
(rst button och a AT+RST). And the other AT+IPR=9600 broke the
firmware. If someone got this to work, please write here in this
thread!!
Here is a link: http://wiki.aprbrother.com/wiki/Firmware_For_ESP8266
The only wiring I did to make it work, is to connect the tx and rx to
Arduino's pins. (rx->tx and tx->rx). According to this example:
http://allaboutee.com/2014/12/27/esp826 ... d-circuit/ connect to pins
2 and 3. The tx and rx from the 8266 shield are located on the left
down side. There are other pins you can use also.
3: (flashing a firwmware) To set the board on flash mode, put the DIP
switches to 3-4 to UP, press the 'ESP-RST' button. When flashing is
done, set these to DOWN and press the 'ESP-RST'. Maybe there is a way
to flash a firmware with the Arduino, but I finally bought a "FT232RL
3.3V 5.5V FTDI USB to TTL Serial Adapter Module for Arduino Mini Port T". There is a picture here: http://blog.falafel.com/how-to-wire-the
... ogramming/. I use this flash software:
https://github.com/Stadslab/ESP8266_exa ... te%20Ready
Because you can't really do any setting with it and it has worked 100%
of all time for me and my use.
So to connect the FT232RL to the 8266 board:
(pins down) from left to right you have: dtr, rx, tx, vcc,cts and gnd
and on the wifi shield from left to right: txd, rxd, 5v, gnd, 3v3.
rx->txd, tx->rxd, gnd->gnd, vcc-> 3v3. Remeber that the FT232RL board
has a jumper to change the voltage. You should use 3.3v. But for me I
had some problems flashing, so I actually the the voltage to 5v and
then connect the vcc to 5v connector on the wifi board. Never had any
problems after that.