Let’s program ESP-Wroom-32 Development Board with Arduino IDE
ESP32-WROOM-32 is a powerful, generic Wi-Fi+BT+BLE MCU module that targets a wide variety of applications, ranging from low-power sensor networks to the most demanding tasks, such as voice encoding, music streaming, and MP3 decoding.
To program ESP-Wroom-32 with Arduino IDE we need to follow the 3 steps as specified below:
1. Add ESP-Wroom-32 board to Arduino IDE
2. Install the driver
3. Connect the board to PC
- Add ESP-Wroom-32 board to Arduino IDE:
In Arduino IDE go to File -> preferences and paste “https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_index.json” in Additional Boards Manager URLs. Then go to Tools -> Boards -> Board Manager. Your PC should connect to the internet. Wait for a while and then search for ESP32. And select “ESP32 by Espressif Systems” and click on install.
After performing one of the above steps you would most probably be able to see many famous ESP32 boards available in the market.
If you have purchased this ESP-Wroom-32 board from robu.com or from amazon.in that most probably there would be written “ESP32 DEVKITV1” on the back of your board.
So, from a number of boards available select “DOIT ESP32 DEVKIT V1”
2. Install the driver
Now, the second step is to install driver software for your development board.
Look closely at your board, there would be one perfect square chip of 3mm * 3mm. It is a USB to UART Bridge VCP driver.
As we have connected a board with a PC through a USB type-B cable to program it, but the ESP-Wroom-32 MCU module communicates with UART, so we need a device that can act as a bridge between USB and UART. So, this small 3*3 chip serves that purpose.
To download a driver for this bridge we need to go to this bridge’s producer, Silicon Labs, official website.
Select a “Download” link from this URL “https://www.silabs.com/developers/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers”.
Now, download a driver according to your OS, for windows install “CP210x Windows Drivers”
Unzip a downloaded document. What I suggest is to make a new folder named “Drivers” in your D drive and unzip this and all future drivers you will work on in this folder only.
Then execute an application file “CP210xVCPInstaller_x64” from an unzipped driver.
Now, you are ready with your driver.
3. Connect the board to PC
Open a “Device Manager” on your PC.
We need to connect the ESP-Wroom-32 board with our PC.
Note: Do not use a simple power cable of USB type-B for this purpose. Use a data cable.
When you connect your board with PC keep watch on Device Manager, there should be some changes and in Ports (COM & LPT) you would see Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge (COMx). In place of the last “x”, there would be a digit, note it down.
Now, reopen your Arduino IDE and you would be able to see Port:x in Tools -> Ports, select it.
Write down a simple blinking code as below.
First press and hold “BOOT” button on your board and then upload your code.
After successfully upload you would see something like below in Arduino IDE’s black output pane.
At last press the “EN” button on a board to run your newly uploaded code.
If you have successfully performed all steps you would see a blue LED flashing with a one-second delay.
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