FTDI problems and Mac OS X CH340 USB-Serial Drivers

I thought I'd burn the latest, revised Sonoff code into my other Sonoff Basic, using my "FTDI" USB-Serial adapter. Should work, ok? Obviously, since I'm writing about it, NOT.

Using the Arduino IDE to compile the latest Sonoff code, I first discovered that it's too large to go into a boring ESP8266 with only 512K of memory. So I had to comment out a whole load of features that I wouldn't be able to use with a Sonoff Basic anyway. Now it might fit...

Then it's time for some stupid-seeming errors... basically the chip doesn't appear to be doing what the esptool thinks it should. Yuck. I try the esptool.py approach, including Flash clear/reset and so on - no joy, same or occasionally different error. Google time.

This is an example - lots of people having this class of problems. Then there's an interesting find - guy reckons counterfeit FTDI chips are the problem! Mine worked ok before... but it's not now. So here's his USB-Serial Adapter Shootout. So maybe I need a new adapter. Bum.

In the meantime, to check anything worked, like you do, I tried burning a Lolin NodeMCU board - <failure hooter sound>. Basically, its CH340G USB-Serial chip doesn't register any more on the Mac OS X. That's probably because I deleted the dratted driver... Time to install the new version for High Sierra (1.4) which is available at the WCH CH340 OS X driver website. Seems to work ok. Hurray. 

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