The ESP8266 may have been manually configured to operate at a different baud rate. There is no power on the ESP8266, when the power is applied to the ESP8266, the red LED should be on. Not enough 3.3V ...

This Arduino project uses an esp8266 module along with two adafruit 16x32 (or a singular 16x64) LED matrix displays. The display scrolls color-coded stock, weather, ... you will find some wiring ...