Arduino IDE

Part 1 of this tutorial covers the set-up of the Arduino IDE to support the ESP8266 boards. In part 2 I will go through the steps of loading a slightly modified Blink sketch to the NodeMCU board. First, a couple of things to be aware of when working with the ESP8266 boards: Power: ESP8266 is a 3.3v board The NodeMCU version of the board has an on-board 3.3v voltage regulator and can be powered from the USB port (5V), or through the vin pin (5-7.5v recommended). All GPIO pins work at 3.3v and the board may be damaged, when connected directly to 5v Arduino compatible modules. Additionally, the maximum current that can be sourced from a digital pin is 12 mA. Use a high value resistor for LEDs (1k Ohm) and do not connect servos, motors, or other peripherals that draw large current. ...

I have recently started exploring an ESP8266 based development board I had sitting around. There is a growing number of firmware and development tools for the board, but as I am familiar with the Arduino IDE and syntax, I decided to give it a shot first. If you are familiar with Lua, you might be more comfortable checking out the NodeMCU project. Those guys created an open source hardware development board around the ESP8266 MCU with included USB interface for easy programming and power and custom firmware and development tool-chain to program the ESP8266 module using Lua. ...