• 

• 

ESP8266 is very common name nowadays. When i saw this board, i was like wow. A big picture in front thinking of all possibilities. So after researching a lot about which one to order, plain ESP8266 or NODEMCU one, i was on for NodeMCU. Even in case of NodeMCU, there are many different manufacturers implementing the firmware onboard.

About ESP8266 And NodeMCU

ESP8266 is a low-cost microchip with WiFi capabilities, full TCP/IP & built in the microcontroller, which opens a wide range of possibilities with this small package.

NODEMCU ESP8266 is the implementation of ESP8266 chip, with NODEMCU open-source IOT firmware. This provides access to its General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) & provides a pin mapping table. It comes with its own API documentation detailing everything.

Now since you are here, you might be aware of this NodeMCU ESP8266 & its capabilities. Here i am not going to cover what & what not about this chip. For that, there are Wikipedia articles for both ESP8266 & NodeMCU ESP8266 as well as other informative articles over the web.

NodeMCU API Documentation: Link
ESP8266 Datasheet: Link

Un-boxing NodeMCU ESP8266 PACKAGE

I ordered NODEMCU ESP8266 from Amazon India. It came in minimal anti-static packaging with a hard foam base to protect pins & was Amica one. There is only a module inside & nothing else. You are good to go with your micro-USB data cable.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

NODEMCU ESP8266 by Amica is a neat breadboard-friendly board. It comes with CP2102 USB serial programmer which is better than CH340 USB serial programmer present in some older versions & Lolin Board.

Now since we have our board. Let us move to next step. Configuring and putting it to use.

Arduino IDE For NodeMCU ESP8266 Programming

1. Download the latest Arduino IDE from the official site as per your system configuration.

2. Install the software in the preferred location. It will also install necessary USB drivers including one for our board ie. CP2102 USB to UART bridge.

3. Visit ESP8266’s GitHub page and copy the board manager link from there. It will be something like this:
http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json

4. Open Arduino IDE. By default Arduino does not come with ESP8266 support. So we need to manually specify link for ESP8266.

5. Go to File → Preferences and paste above ESP8266 board manager link under “Additional Boards Manager URLs”. Click on ok.

6. Now go to Tools → Board → Board Manager & search for esp8266 by ESP8266 community.

7. Click on install. It will download several related board definitions and install them. Once the installation is successful, close the window.

8. Now when you will go to Tools → Boards, you will find all of the ESP8266 related boards listed.

Programming NodeMCU ESP8266

1. Open Arduino IDE.

2. Go to Tools → Boards and choose your board. Here in our case its NodeMCU 1.0 (ESP-12E Module)

3. Now in Tools → Port, choose communication port on which board is connected. To find it go to windows device manager & under ports (COM & LPT) locate CP210x to UART Bridge. In our case its COM3.

4. Specify upload speed in Tools → Upload Speed. 115200 works well in general and with large code sketches also. While 9600 will also work but may fail in some large sketches & is very slow.

5. Leave other options in Tools as such.

6. You are all set now. Code a sketch, upload it to the board via Sketch → Upload.

7. While sketch or code is getting uploaded to the board, blue LED near WiFi antenna blinks continuously indicating transfer.

8. Enjoy the endless world of ESP8266.

Hope you were able to successfully install & configure your board. It’s really easy setting up Arduino for ESP8266 & programming it via its IDE. There are lots of examples under Files → Examples for the ESP8266 series. Try them on.

Some Basic Things with NodeMCU ESP8266

Blink Onboard Blue Colour LED

Blink External LED

Interface With Relay (for controlling AC/DC devices)

Get NodeMCU ESP8266 from Amazon India