HOW TO PROGRAM CRODUINO MININOVA WITH ARDUINO IDE?

HOW TO PROGRAM CRODUINO MININOVA WITH ARDUINO IDE?-Uncategorized

You received your Croduino miniNOVA so it is time to make it work. This tutorial will show you how simple that is.

NOTE: If you already have set your Arduino IDE for esp8266, you can immediately skip to step 7.

STEP BY STEP

STEP 1: Of course we need to install Arduino IDE (software) first. If you haven’t done this yet, you can find a tutorial for it here. For this procedure, you need to have Arduino IDE 1.6 or higher. If you are using an older version, uninstall it and replace with newer using given instructions.

STEP 2: Open Arduino IDE. Go to File->Preferences (Windows), while on OS X go to Arduino->Preferences. You will notice a field Additional Boards Manager URLs. Place the next link to that field: http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json

Confirm with OK.

STEP 3: Go to Tools->Boards->Boards Manager.

STEP 4: There is esp8266 by ESP8266 Community at the bottom of the list, as last. Choose as version 2.0.0(or the newest in the moment of your installation) and click on Install.

STEP 5: This process will take some time, but after it’s done, feel free to close Boards manager. Now under Tools->Board, you’ll be able to see some new options. Choose Generic ESP8266 Module.

STEP 6: Now, under Tools->Board we have many options. The last change we need to make is under Flash size, choose 4M (1M SPIFFS).

With this done, you’ve successfully set up your Arduino IDE for using with Croduino miniNOVA.

STEP 7: There is the last step which is to actually program with your code. Open your code. It is required to connect your Croduino miniNOVA with some kind of board which has built-in USB converter, like our USB-UART adapter (it is suggested to get alongside with miniNova for easiest use). With that adapter, you can program a good amount of Arduino compatible boards from our offer as well (Basic2, NOVA…).

A connection between adapter and miniNOVA is really simple, as shown in the picture. You can program miniNOVA with any other board which includes USB-UART IC, like for example Basic2 or NOVA. All you need to do is, connect the power(+5V and gnd) and make a cross connection with rx and tx between boards (rx->tx, tx->rx).

STEP 8: Before pressing an “Upload” button inside Arduino IDE, it is required to set Croduino miniNOVA to bootloader mode, ie. tell it to be ready to receive new code. You will need to repeat this next procedure each time before uploading a new code to the board.
1.: There are two buttons on the board, GPIO0 and RESET. Press and hold GPIO0 button.
2.: Press RESET button while holding GPIO0.
3.: Release RESET button, while holding GPIO0.
4.: Release GPIO0 button. You are ready to upload. Press the “Upload” button inside Arduino IDE to start the programming.

That’s it! Don’t forget to do step 8 (button combination) before every upload.