Flash Tasmota to Sonoff using Raspberry Pi

I'm using a Raspberry Pi to flash the firmware. I find this simplier that using a USB TTY device plus I also have a number of Raspberry Pi's laying around.

Prerquisite

Install PIP

apt install python3-pip
sudo pip3 install esptool

Change Config Files

cmdline.txt

 vi /boot/cmdline.txt 

delete

 "console=serial0,115200" 

config.txt

 vi /boot/config.txt 

add

 "enable_uart=1" 

Flashing

Warning: Do not have this device connected to mains power while flashing. Power is obtained by the Raspberry Pi. You need to hold the button down while powering on. After each command you will need to reboot the device and hold the button down to enter flash mode.

Display Existing

 esptool.py --port /dev/serial0 flash_id 

Backup

 esptool.py --port /dev/serial0 read_flash 0x00000 0x400000 sonoff-image4M-stock.bin 

or

 esptool.py --port /dev/serial0 read_flash 0x00000 0x100000 sonoff-image1M-stock.bin 

Erase

 esptool.py --port /dev/serial0 erase_flash 

Flash

Here I'm downloading the sonoff.bin file from thehackbox but writing the file as sonoff-7.2.0.bin. At time of download the version has probably changed, so write the file as per the correct version number so you know which version of the file you have.

wget http://thehackbox.org/tasmota/release/sonoff.bin -O /home/pi/Downloads/sonoff-7.2.0.bin

esptool.py --port /dev/serial0 write_flash -fm dout 0x0 /home/pi/Downloads/sonoff-7.2.0.bin

Configure

miniterm

Miniterm is a terminal app to allow connection to the Sonoff over serial so we don't need to connect to the device over Wi-Fi for initial configuration.

miniterm /dev/serial0 115200 -e

settings

Change the settings as you require.

backlog ssid1 myssid; password1 mypassword 
backlog ipaddress1 10.13.13.238; ipaddress2 10.13.13.254; ipaddress3 255.255.255.0; ipaddress4 8.8.8.8
backlog ntpserver1 1.au.pool.ntp.org; ntpserver2 2.au.pool.ntp.org; ntpserver3 3.au.pool.ntp.org; timezone +10; Latitude -27.475646; Longitude 153.030499
backlog PowerOnState 1; teleperiod 20; PowerRetain 1
backlog MqttUser username; MqttPassword passw0rd; Topic laundry; DeviceName laundry; MqttHost 10.13.13.253; GroupTopic2 CanUpgrade

Now change your device to the correct type. Note if you have the Pow device, changing to Pow will disable the serial logger so any further commands will need to be done from the WEB GUI.

module 43

You can view the console command but can not enter any moving forward. Also notice the baud rate change.

 miniterm /dev/serial0 4800 -e

When updating the MQTT details and the module type the device will reboot, so make sure you wait for reboot to complete.

Field	Description
ipaddress1	IP address
ipaddress2	gateway
ipaddress3	IP mask
ipaddress4	DNS

Modules

Number	Descrption
0	Generic
1	Basic
4	TH
5	Dual
43	Pow R2

....and many more.