ESP8266 Community Forum

- Tue Mar 03, 2020 6:14 pm #85932 Hi, i'm a novice in the IoT and i'm trying to explore it.
My trivial sketch allows updates from WiFi and I want to protect my project from unauthorized access.
So i want to disable completely the serial comunication (USB) by the uploaded sketch and, if possible, force USB to not consunes power from battery.
Is these posiible, please ?

- Thu Mar 05, 2020 7:45 am #85956 Not sure what you're trying to achieve, but from what I can decipher:

• The ESP8266 doesn't have USB, only a UART (serial) port.
  You probably have a development board with an integrated USB - UART convertor
  If you don't want the convertor to draw any power, simple choose a board without one (or use a plain ESP-12)
• The ESP8266 doesn't have a feature to protect your code (ie. a code fuse).
  Even "Worse": the code isn't even stored inside the ESP, but in external (unprotected) flash memory; one can easily read the chip if wanted.

Assumption is the mother of all f*ckups. At least: that's what I'm assuming.

- Thu Mar 05, 2020 10:17 am #85958 Thank you for your response.
Yes, I use a deployment board with a built-in USB-UART converter. I need the inverter to upload the first sketch and after that I don't need it and want to turn it off so that no one will be able to reprogram it except by OTA access. I also want to limit power consumption since I no longer need the inverter.

- Fri Mar 06, 2020 4:04 am #85969 As the name suggests a development board is to develop software and/or hardware, after that you can use your own (hardware) design that incorporates an ESP8266 module and flash the firmware once over UART by using some pads on your PCB and pogo-pins, just like with (almost) all commercial products (like in Sonoff modules).

Assumption is the mother of all f*ckups. At least: that's what I'm assuming.