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AprilBrother

2,963 orders since Mar 04, 2015

Beijing, Beijing, China

Ships from China.

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Welcome to our store. Regular shipping takes about 10-20 days deliver, Any question, please feel free to contact us. Whatsapp：8613661293819

Overall Rating:

Review Breakdown

5
35 4
32 3
17 2
4 1
2

Average Ratings

Product: (4.48)

Documentation: (3.72)

Shipping: (4.67)

Communication: (4.31)

All Reviews

Marcel | Sept. 20, 2015

Works OK, just as expected. Easy.

For Cactus Micro Rev2 Arduino compatible plus esp8266

Use it for small devices in my home that are connecter to internet to show stuf on small OLEd displays.

Marcel | Sept. 10, 2015

Vversatile

For ESP8266 Flasher Rev2

Very useful and complete product. I use it to program ESP8266 modules. Since I have this module I also experimented flashing new firmware in my ESP modules. This module allows you to that real easy (flash jumper).
The best part of this product is how vertasile it is, because it supports all different kind of ESP modules. Even ones that I do not own yet, but now I'm able to use these at a later stage.

Scott | Aug. 29, 2015

Great little board for esp8266 prototyping

For TinyESP ESP8266 Breadboard Adapter

I'd bought a few ESP8266 boards with an aim to use them for small IoT projects that don't require all the features of a Particle Proton (or similar) but with them not coming in a breadboard friendly format it's always been a bit fiddly and so I never really got around to using them. This little adapter board makes them a breeze to prototype with and doesn't add much to their already tiny size. I had no issues soldering on my existing esp8266 boards, then installed NodeMCU and was off hacking.

Jeffrey | Aug. 17, 2015

Excellent product, excellent seller

For ABBLEShield BLE 4.0 UART Module

Seller is responsive and documentation is very good.

The product itself is excellent quality with great support. Worked quickly with Android and cordova.

Noel | Aug. 16, 2015

Awesome!

For ESP8266 Flasher Rev2

Works as advertised. Will definitely recommend! Not sure why the hackday store is not selling this one instead of the kit they have now.

Alexandre | Aug. 13, 2015

Everything working great documentation is a

For Cactus Micro Rev2 Arduino compatible plus esp8266

This little board is amazing, wifi and keyboard + mouse "emulation" allows one to think about a lot of crazy things that could be done.
The documentation is not completly noobs friendly and their website is sometimes quite slow or even not responding. Anyway I had reflashed the esp and was sending packets to the "interwebs" in after 30 min, but then again I'm also not a completely noob.

I suggest people using this to have a look at espduino and this example https://github.com/tuanpmt/espduino/blob/master/espduino/examples/rest/rest.ino

Ric | Aug. 12, 2015

Convenient USB to UART converter for ESP8266 programming

For ESP8266 Flasher Rev2

It works as advertised. It's just a bare bones print with USB connector, but more isn't needed. Aside from the connector for the ESP8266-1 there's some additional connectors. I programmed two ESP8266-1's with it. One worked without a hitch, the other suffered a number of times of the ' invalid head of packet' problem. Disconnecting everything and restarting the flash program seemed to solve that.

It was a bit of a guess what setting for the jumper is needed for programming and which setting for just sending serial commands. When the jumper is mounted it is in programming mode. Remove the jumper for normal serial port operation.

The voltage selection jumper is documented on the backside of the board. Mine was preset for 3.3V.

Depending on the model/firmware of the ESP8266 you may have to play a bit with the baud rate, but that's more a ESP8266 thing.

All in all quite happy with it and I'd recommend it.

Joe | Aug. 4, 2015

Excellent USB adapter for ESP8266

For ESP8266 Flasher Rev2

This is exactly what I was looking for. It combines an USB adapter with an ESP8266 adapter and supplies enough current for programming the ESP8266 flash memory. I just wish the jumper configuration for "regular operation vs flash- programming" was opposite to what it is. Currently, we have to remove the jumper for regular operation, which is inconvenient since we could easily lose the jumper. Flash programming is done less frequently, so removing the jumper for that would make it convenient.

Daniel | July 26, 2015

Pretty happy

For Cactus Micro Rev2 Arduino compatible plus esp8266

I'm satisfied with the Cactus Micro v2. It was delivered quickly (shipped Monday, delivered that Friday to the UK). The boards seem to work well, although I've changed the firmware of the ESP to NodeMCU, rather than use the AT-based default firmware. I plan to use them as a "remote keyboard/mouse", so would be happier with an A-type USB connector, but the micro-USB is probably more suited to general use.
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Response from AprilBrother | July 27, 2015
We're waiting for you new great project!

Travis | June 28, 2015

Works Great!

For TinyESP ESP8266 Breadboard Adapter

This little device was able to help me start building with the ESP-12 quickly and easily. It works perfectly with my own serial adapter as well as the TinyUART that I also purchased.

Travis | June 28, 2015

Works Great - Simplifies Design

For TinyUART USB To UART converter for TinyESP

This device helped me get to work on my ideas quickly. The TinyESP modules fit perfectly and were able to be programmed flawlessly.

Alexander | June 26, 2015

Great for anyone getting started with Arduino+ESP8266

For Cactus Micro Arduino compatible plus WIFI esp8266

I've used a lot of ESP8266 variants and combinations and this particular one is my favorite. It's not really for beginners - you'll want to program the ESP8266 and the Arduino in isolation and then connect them together - a bit more advanced than the usual project. That said, once you get the firmware set up, it's much easier to develop with this combination than it is to develop with just an ESP8266.

Replace the ESP8266 firmware immediately with https://github.com/tuanpmt/espduino for best results - the stock AT firmware is a lot less reliable / much more difficult to use / doesn't have HTTP support, etc.

Alexander | June 26, 2015

The only option for ESP8266 flashing

For ESP8266 Flasher Rev2

The ESP8266 requires quite a bit more power than the average MCU when flashing - my various CH340 and FTDI boards have a success rate around 80%. The CH340 drivers for Mac OS X are also difficult to deal with.

I've had no trouble at all with the CP2102 drivers and the separate 3.3V LDO makes a HUGE difference - I haven't had a failed flash with this board yet!

Would love to see automatic reset-to-flashmode in the next version.

Sanjee | June 17, 2015

Good hardware but poor documentation

For Cactus Micro Arduino compatible plus WIFI esp8266

I wanted to use this product as a simpler, cheaper replacement for the Teensy 3.1, but unfortunately the documentation was nowhere near as good and I found it very difficult even connecting to my local wireless network.

Note on the hardware: the ESP8266 is soldered via pins to the Teensy-like board, and there is ~1mm separation between the two boards. Just be aware that in a rough environment, a snag on the ESP8266 could conceivably bnreak the wires (the connection is soldered well).

On the plus side, the Cactus Micro people are quite responsive and, while I moved on to another solution, they did seem to care about helping me debug the problem.

I-Horng | June 16, 2015

Good

For Cactus Micro Arduino compatible plus WIFI esp8266

1. It takes me couple days to accomplish the testing, I mean the document is not enough and I finally find more on Sparkfun site for my need.
2. ESP8266 uses software AP technique, so its speed may not be very fast for all application. But for my case, it's fast enough.

Marc | May 26, 2015

product & shipping perfect, lacks documentation

For BlueDuino Rev2 Arduino Compatible

Hi AB

The shipping was extremely fast and products are working as expected, though i was just playing around with example controlling led & servos. via iphone.

Arduino code is pretty much uncommented and ios code as well. It's working but it would be quite nice if there would exist a simple step-by-step introduction on how to accomplish basic phone connection and use some static buttons and sliders to control pins. I somehow started to understand how communication is working but it would be helpful to start with the basics explained. The example is nice to test if the chip, pins & connection is working, but it needs lot's of digging in the code to achieve some minimal interactions from scratch.

the wifi shield is easier to unterstand because it's basically arduino code and not much more. the blueduino starts to get interesting with phone connection (for example) and therefore the documentation should be more in depth, i think.

I'll try to come up with a more simplistic example on my own and will publish on github, guess other beginners in ios coding would appreciate this as well.

Furthermore for both cactus micro arduino (wifi shield) and blueduino there is no eagle library. we did one now for the cactus ourselves and will publish it soon (if ok with you). nevertheless this would be a huge benefit if this things would be included in the documentation. schematics are there but why no layout/library of the board?

I guess the better the documentation and maybe ease of use of libraries get the more interesting the product will become for beginners, educational purposes etc. Especially because it's one of the best value products in this field and if the documentation improves i think sales will benefit heavily.

Hope this input was helpful.

Best
Marc

Marc | May 4, 2015

works as it should

For Cactus Micro Arduino compatible plus WIFI esp8266

Used 6 modules out of 1o in a workshop, all worked without problems. (4 yet spare)

recommend it.

Aaron | April 27, 2015

Pleasantly surprised. Nice little controller + WiFi

For Cactus Micro Arduino compatible plus WIFI esp8266

I thought it was going to take a month to get to me, since it was from China. I was wrong! It came in just a few days. This is a neat and capable little package. It's not as powerful or convenient as developing on the Electric Imp platform. But it is cheap and it works. The only problem I found is that the ESP8266 ships with the older firmware, which has a bug that locks the module up. But, not big a deal, thanks to a really handy "hidden feature" of the Cactus Micro package -- the Arduino board can control the ESP8266 module. Specifically, there is an 'Enable' pin that I use to power-cycle the ESP8266 whenever it got stuck. So even if you run into problems, the package gives you a way to automatically recover from it. After that hack, my Cactus is like the Terminator, it goes down sometimes but it always comes back up and keeps transmitting data.

Xavier | April 23, 2015

Nice product but it needs improvements

For Cactus Micro Arduino compatible plus WIFI esp8266

The product is well manufactured, the idea of being able to plug in/out the ESP8266 module is smart.

The problem is that in the era of IOT, not being able to do a simple HTTP POST request out of the box is a no go for me. After some investigations it seems possible (see: https://github.com/AprilBrother/cactus-micro/issues/1 and http://blog.aprbrother.com/p/303) but in the process I lost the needed patience to test the final solution.

Anyway, it feels like more bumps as we often encounter with a fresh new product rather than unfixable bugs, so I keep on being confident with the product.

The documentation is growing up every day, see: http://wiki.aprbrother.com/wiki/Cactus_Micro and http://blog.aprbrother.com/tag/cactus-micro

I hope I'll find some more time to fiddle with, because the product seems pretty good once passed through the buggy things.

Regards

Joe | April 20, 2015

Good vendor, OK product, one glitch.

For Cactus Micro Arduino compatible plus WIFI esp8266

I received two units, shipping time was faster than I expected coming to USA from China. First inspection showed a well built device, with the ESP8266 daughter board atop the Arduino compatible motherboard. This is interesting because it allows for the use of the ESP8266 board without the Arduino, if that's desired. The micro usb plug is solid. I spent a week trying to get the Arduino to talk to the ESP through the SoftwareSerial interface as described in the documentation. I did use the recommended Arduino IDE, version 1.0.6. I tried three or four different SoftwareSerial libraries, but none worked. So I contacted the vendor, aprilbrother, who responded within a few hours with the suggestion to increase the Software Serial library buffer size. This didn't work. He then suggested to switch over to the uart interface. This required cutting two tiny jumpers on the back of the board, and connecting the alternate jumpers with solder. No problems there. After this change, everything worked as expected. I was able to create a simple sketch that takes input from the Serial Monitor and sends it to the ESP, as well as send information over the wifi, and receive information from the wifi. I can easily connect to my router, create a tcp client, a tcp server, and deliver info to a browser via http on request. The ESP is flashed for a 9600 baud uart speed. The ATmega32U4 has only 2.5K bytes of RAM, which is used for the stack, strings, and variables, so buffer sizes are somewhat limited. The vendor provides basic documentation for his device, but more is needed. It's available, but takes considerable searching to pull it all together. I'm disappointed that the Software Serial interface didn't work. It would pull up to a hundred characters from the ESP, but then would seem to lose synchronization and deliver gibberish. Same effect if I increased the buffer size to 256. Long commands back to the ESP didn't work either, but short ones did. If you don't need the uart for your application, then it's not an issue. For me, the Serial1 interface has more functionality than Software Serial, so I like it better anyway. Overall, this is a great device if you need small size, short messages back and forth, you're not afraid to solder, and you're willing to do the work to find all the documentation you need. Also, if you're going for a low power application, this device would work if you remove the power on led.

Patrick | April 8, 2015

So Close to Being So Good, Has Fatal Flaws Out of the Box

For Cactus Micro Arduino compatible plus WIFI esp8266

I was really excited about these, between the low price and the small size, not to mention the ease of programming them thanks to Arduino compatibility, they sounded almost perfect for about a dozen of the things on the "projects I want to work on if I ever have the time" list.

Unfortunately the these are very flawed devices indeed. I should say, the Arduino baseboard part seems to be mostly okay. I did have a few problems getting it to flash at first, removing the WiFi module let me flash it and after flashing it with my own sketch once I was able to flash it with the WiFi module in place. I assume there was some issue with the pre-flashed AT terminal sketch that prevents it from communicating with the Arduino IDE.

The next problem that I had was the lack of documentation. Maybe lack it the wrong word, maybe "thinness". Basically it's spread all over the place. They don't even have any documentation for the AT command set for the WiFi module, they just give you a link to the nurdspace wiki page.

None of these would stop be from recommending this device, the thing that does stop me is it can't actually do HTTP at all. Now you might be thinking "But they have an example that writes data to sparkfun data using HTTP!". Yes, they do have an example that writes data to sparkfun data, but the garbage that it sends isn't HTTP, it's just kinda-sorta http-like enough that sparkfun's servers are able to figure out what it meant (probably mostly by luck). I was very excited when I saw the method for writing out over a TCP socket, you actually tell it how many bytes you're about to send before you send it so there aren't any silly time-based escape codes like some AT command sets have. And it would have been great if they had implemented it properly, but they didn't. For some reason it seems to strip CRLFs ("\r\n") randomly so you can't have newlines between the line in an HTTP header, not all of them and I can't figure out how I'd even work around that. It also doesn't then count what it removes so you end up sending some of your next AT command to the server and have no idea where you are in a command.

This means that for this to be useful you're going to have to setup a build system to build and flash a community firmware to the WiFi module, which I haven't had the time to do yet. And at that point, why not just flash one of the eLua-based firmwares and make it even easier to use and not need the Arduino base board part?

I don't know if I can update these reviews after the fact, but if I can and if I ever find the time I'll let you know if I've found a way to make these useful.

tl;dr: Arduino part is fine. WiFi module is crap and can't handle new lines so can't do anything useful (HTTP).
Avatar
Response from AprilBrother | April 14, 2015
Thanks for your review. I have update our document for resolve some issues like how to handle new line. If [this link](http://wiki.aprbrother.com/wiki/Cactus_Micro_Tutorial) works, please let me know.

Michael | April 2, 2015

The module is great

For TinyESP ESP8266 Breadboard Adapter

It's small so it works with any size breadboard. All pins are brought out, and it has a built-in voltage regulator.
I rated documentation and communication as "OK" because I didn't try to communicated with the vendor, and I don't feel there is really any need for documentation, so I don't remember if there was any or not.
It works great, I use it daily for prototyping new ideas.
Highly recommended.
I also recommend trying the new "ESP-Arduino" development environment with this for quick and easy programming using the ESP features - http://www.esp8266.com/viewforum.php?f=25
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Response from AprilBrother | April 2, 2015
Thanks for your review! We working on [the USB to UART converter for TinyESP](https://twitter.com/linlinqi/status/575833039533568000). It will be available soon.
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