Program ESP-12E Using Nucleo Board

If you have any Nucleo board, then you can program an ESP-12E module through it (only if you have already set up your ESP-12E module correctly and ready to program).

Absolutely no coding is required.

The biggest advantage of nucleo board is its 3v3 working voltage. Normal USB to serial modules work on 5v and you have to use voltage divider or voltage level shifter to avoid damage to your ESP-12E (or any other ESP module).

The Nucleo board will act as simple USB to serial module. In fact, you can program or communicate with anything that support UART like Arduino Uno or any other board.

Simply connect:

ESP-12E Tx (GPIO-1) pin to Rx (ST-LINK part of Nucleo Board - CN3)

ESP-12E Rx (GPIO-3) pin to Tx (ST-LINK part of Nucleo Board - CN3)

ESP-12E Gnd to Nucleo Gnd.

Now in Arduino IDE, select your ST-LINK COM port in "port" option and select "upload speed" as 115200. You're then good to go.

*It will not effect the program running on your nucleo controller unless it is communicating on UART2. Also its better to supply your ESP module through other 3v3 source.

CAUTION: Do not supply your ESP module through the Nucleo board. I'm only supplying power to my ESP-12E module through my Nucleo because my PC USB port supports 1A current, and also there is no external peripheral connected to my Nucleo or ESP module.