Programming in the Arduino IDE

This page provides a beginner's introduction to setting up the Arduino Integrated Development Environment ('IDE') to program the m0xpd / Kanga ESP8266 - AD9834 board.

First, you need to download an up-to-date version of the IDE (unfortunately, early IDEs don't support the ESP8266). These notes assume you'll use version 1.6.12, which can be downloaded from here.

Once you have installed the IDE, you must also enable the system to use the ESP8266. This device isn't bundled with the IDE software (like the Arduino Boards themselves), so you must download it yourself. To do this, copy this line of text:

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

Open the 'Preferences' window of the IDE, and paste the line of text (which you copied from above) into the into the 'Additional Board Manager URLs' field, as shown below...

When you've done this, open the 'Board Manager' of the ID, which you access through the 'Tools' tab...

When you open the Boards Manager, you will see a list of devices - including an option to install the esp8266 package - go ahead and press "install" to download all the supporting resources to allow the IDE to work with the ESP8266 device (and various boards which use that device).

Once the download is completed, your Boards Manager will look like this...

showing that the package is installed and your IDE is ready to use with the ESP8266.

To connect to the m0xpd / Kanga ESP8266 board, you need tell the IDE which type of processor you are trying to use and you need to set up the "Reset Method".

First, set the board type to 'Generic ESP8266 Module'...

When you plug in your board, ensure the Reset Method is set to 'nodemcu'...

The other parameters should default to the correct settings - those shown above are correct. However, the particular Port used IS SPECIFIC TO YOUR COMPUTER - it is likely that your system will show connection to the board on a different port than COM7.