My idiot's guide to VUE3 BDM flashing

[gekkehenkie11]

Flashing the VUE2 with a BDM board is super easy, but with the VUE3 I had some more problems, even to the point that I tried other methods.
After going back and forth between flashing methods (adapter/soldering/BDM), BDM definitely got out as my favorite. I was wrestling with this before because I misread the RX/TX labeling in the guide on this website. For me it was best to ignore the photo on the website and just make sure that the pad that's labeled RX on the board connects to the RX on the serial adapter, and TX on the board to TX on the serial adapter.

Also 3 things that made it a lot easier:

1. The antenna connector is ground! So you can skip a probe to the GND pad and connect your serial adapter's GND to the antenna copper instead! I used a Crocodile clip to female dupont for this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GKGXL53. You can do the same for the IO0 pin (crocodile to male dupont that you stick into the IO0, for me it was a bit easier to strip off the black dupont plastic, I think it made better contact after that) ! So I had 2 Crocodile clips connected to the antenna copper connector, just clip them on, done.
2. So you're now left with only 3 probes to worry about, which makes things almost infinitely easier. But still, it's easy to confuse the probes so I printed 3 labels that I attached to the top of each probe, RX, TX and 3V and first connected the probes to the serial connector. This avoids any confusion and makes it super easy to see what is what. Especiallly if you forget about the labeling on this website (which of course is technically correct), but only focus on RX board = RX serial, So you dont need to worry if your RX sticker on the probe is the serial side or the board side, it's all the same now :) This way it's super easy to quickly see if you're wiring is correct.
3. Make sure that you press the probes 'into' the pads, if you press into them, they stay easier in place. Really important or else they'll easily slip of the pads.

Actually with this method it was super easy to flash, probably had it done within 5 minutes, whereas I have spent several hours before, but that was mainly (I think) because having RX/TX wrong, damn. And the adapter method didnt really treat me well. Anyway hopefullly this helps someone here on this website.

[oliv3r]

https://github.com/rosenrot00/emporiavue can flash both vue2 and vue3 directly from the ESP, so no more pad probing. For vue3 this is a huge boon. The ESP still needs some tough-love to be flashed on the Vue3 sadly though.