ESP8266 Community Forum

schufti wrote:compatible ... bearing in mind that the internal flash only supports DIO

Are you sure about that? I read several articles that stated that the 8285's only supported QOUT or DOUT to their integrated internal flash.

JimInWoodstock wrote:I purchased several of the 8285 DOIT ESP-M3 modules from Aliexpress. I cannot find a way to program them. I have programmed many 8266 boards and several Sonoff basic modules with success. I cannot find a way to get these modules to enter program mode. I have tried all the ways that I know with zero success. Does anyone have experience with these modules?

Problem solved. Steps using the Arduino IDE are as follows:
Hook up a 3.3v FTDI board. Only 4 wires are needed Vss, Gnd, Tx, Rx
Select Board: "Generic 8285"
Select Flash: "1m(64kSpiff)"
Bring GPIO0 to ground (this is the most important part).
Plugin FTDI module into usb port (the GPIO0 pin grounded will set the 8285 into upload mode when power is applied).
Remove ground from GPIO0
Upload the sketch.

You can program them with ESP8266Flasher or esptool.py. Make sure to set the flash mode to DOUT. It usually defaults to DIO or QIO. Neither will work on the 8285.
also make the flash size 1M...not 4M

I found the solution to programming the ESP-M3 modules. If no-one else has. I didn't see it posted.
I uses ESP8266Flasher.exe on windows.
Baudrate 921600, Flash size 1MByte, Flash Speed 40 MHZ, SPI Mode DOUT
Used "nodemcu-master-12-modules-2018-03-18-16-15-41-integer.bin" firmware, built on the cloud builder.

for arduino, use nodemcu reset option. works for me