Summary

about 6:00 pm, Monday, January 21, 2019

Something has gone wrong, and my NodeMCU board may be bricked.  I have spares, but I will fail to get the project done in one day, as I had hoped.

Deets

While fiddling with the commands and starting to plan the Lua code for the server, something started going wrong.  Initially serial data was not being responded to, and then the terminal connection locked up.  I rebooted the board and reconnected, but very shortly afterwards random garbage data was being sent to the terminal.

So now I have to figure that out.  Could it be:

1. the 9 V is just way too much for the input of the NodeMCU regulator, and it failed somehow?  It's rated for a max input of 20 V, but I wonder with the current needed for the radio that maybe it is overloading?  It doesn't feel hot to the touch, though.
2. the board has become flaky somehow.  Maybe I zapped it somehow while playing with it or assembling or doing my electrical tests.
3. something else...

I tried reflashing, and then the flash operation failed midway, so it seems I have also bricked the board.  I have two more boards, but I have exhausted the time today for this project, so I failed to get it done in one day as I had set out to do.  *sigh*  Thems the breaks.  So further work will have to wait until the weekend.

Next

Cry a little.  Then start over.