How to Setup the ESP8266 Arduino IDE with the NodeMCU V3 (ESP8266 ESP12e)

The easy way to use the ESP8266 is with the Arduino IDE and this ESP8266 Arduino tutorial shows you how to install drivers into the Arduino IDE to program the ESP8266. It then shows you an example sketch using wifi.

The Lolin nodeMCU V3 breakout board is an ESP-12E style ESP8266 breakout board which makes it very easy to use an ESP8266 device - you just  plug it into a micro USB connector and its ready.

Lolin nodeMCU V3 Board

The board includes its own 3V3 power supply regulator, a reset button, a Flash button and a USB-to-serial chip (CH340G on mine). You can just plug it into a USB port (micro USB connector) and start using it.

When you follow the instructions below, you can program the Lolin NodeMCU as if it were any other Arduino device. This is convenient since it uses the same familiar Arduino IDE programming environment.

Starting the nodeMCU

When you power up the nodeMCU for the first time you will see this message - when you connect a serial terminal on the PC - such as Tera Term - at 9600, 8 bits, 1 stop bit, no parity (8 1 N):

This is a LUA interface which is an interactive script system - you can type commands directly at the prompt to get the ESP8266 to perform. However the rest of this page shows you how to use the Arduino programming environment to program the board in C/C++ as you would with any other Arduino board.

If you continue past this point and Flash the Arduino sketch then the LUA environment will be overwritten. If you want to use LUA again you will need to re-flash the firmware.

ESP8266 Arduino Tutorial

Install USB To Serial Drivers

The first step in setting up the ESP8266 Arduino IDE is to plug in the NODEMCU and check the Windows device Manager for an entry in the Ports section.

If you don't see the NodeMCU showing up as shown below then you will need to install drivers. The other possibility is that the NodeMCU is using too much power - I found it would not work from a powered hub but only from direct connection to the PC USB port. It needs 400mA!

External Power Source

Note: You can add an external power source to the Vin connection on the board with voltage >5V. Also connect ground labelled 'G' to complete the circuit.

ESP8266 Arduino IDE Boards Manager

To setup the board use the board manager:

Add the following text to the "Additional Boards Manager URLs":

http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json

Now Install the nodeMCU Boards

Start the Boards manager dialogue. Click Boards Manager...

Search for and install the "esp8266 by ESP8266 community" Entry.

Now select the nodeMCU 1.0 (ESP-12E Module) entry - this is the base type for nodeMCU. nodeMCU is actually the firmware running on an ESP8266 ESP-12E.

Now check that you have similar information to the following - especially these:

• Board "nodeMCU 1.0 (ESP-12E Module)"
• Upload speed "115200baud"
• CPU frequency "80MHz"
• Flash Size "1M (3M SPIFFS)"

ESP8266 Arduino Example Sketch

Use the ESP8266 Arduino IDE to load the following sketch - just copy to white area of the IDE and hit the upload button. This shows you a quick example of the ESP8266 Arduino WiFi capability.

This example is from github.

Copy Sketch

#include "ESP8266WiFi.h"

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);

  // Set WiFi to station mode and disconnect from an AP if it was previously connected
  WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);
  WiFi.disconnect();
  delay(100);

  Serial.println("Setup done");
}

void loop() {
  Serial.println("scan start");

  // WiFi.scanNetworks will return the number of networks found
  int n = WiFi.scanNetworks();
  Serial.println("scan done");
  if (n == 0) {
    Serial.println("no networks found");
  } else {
    Serial.print(n);
    Serial.println(" networks found");
    for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
      // Print SSID and RSSI for each network found
      Serial.print(i + 1);
      Serial.print(": ");
      Serial.print(WiFi.SSID(i));
      Serial.print(" (");
      Serial.print(WiFi.RSSI(i));
      Serial.print(")");
      Serial.println((WiFi.encryptionType(i) == ENC_TYPE_NONE) ? " " : "*");
      delay(10);
    }
  }
  Serial.println("");

  // Wait a bit before scanning again
  delay(5000);
}

ESP8266 Arduino Example Output

Here's the typical output from the sketch using the serial monitor.

Setup done
scan start
scan done
15 networks found
1: SKY6F103 (-91)*
2: SKY7C621 (-88)*
3: SKY6F103 (-91)*
4: BTWifi-X (-87)
5: BTHub6-2MX3 (-87)*
6: talktalkt8974 (-61)*
7: VM989231-2G (-82)*
8: BNIPOF_6723 (-16)*
9: VM7227168 (-93)*
10: VM0345159 (-92)*
11: BTWifi-with-FON (-88)
12: Virgin Media (-90)*
13: Virgin Media (-93)*
14: VM-guest3451593 (-89)*
15: Virgin Media (-89)*

Arduino IDE Install Libraries

A lot of code depends on libraries that you need to install before the code will compile.

Old IDE up to 1.8.19

For the older IDEs just use the Menu:

Menu > Tools > Manage Libraries

... Now wait for all the library descriptions to load!

... then type in the required library - in this case ESPAsyncTCP and you'll see:

In this case the ESPAsyncTCP library is already installed. It it were not you would see an 'Install' button to do the job.

New IDE 2.x.x onwards

The new IDE has a sidebar that you can get to libraries more easily so you don't have to wait for the library manager to load all the library descriptions before you can get to the one you want.

The screenshots below show the process of installing libraries for the newer IDE. You can access this library using the menu (same as before):

    Menu > Tools > Manage Libraries

or

    Click the Icon that shows books on a shelf (see image below)

Conclusion

This ESP8266 Arduino IDE tutorial shows you how to flash an esp8266 with the Arduino IDE and install libraries, making it easy to create C/C++ based programs programmed into the ESP8266.

If you want to go back to LUA there's a link to full instructions for that on this page. One reason you might want to use LUA is that it is a scripted language and does not require the entire Flash memory to be programmed on each code udate so LUA is far faster to update. 

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