Installing the ESP8266 Board

Here is how to install ESP8266 board into Arduino IDE.

I just followed the steps in this guide.

To install the ESP8266 board in your Arduino IDE, follow these next instructions:

First, I added the URL in the additional boards in the preferences page.

1) Open the preferences window from the Arduino IDE. Go to File > Preferences

Then I opened boards - board manager and chosen Install option.

2) Enter http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json into the “Additional Board Manager URLs” field as shown in the figure below. Then, click the “OK” button.

3) Open boards manager. Go to Tools > Board > Boards Manager…

4) Scroll down, select the ESP8266 board menu and install “esp8266”

The package is so large (about 157MB).

5) Choose your ESP8266 board from Tools > Board > Generic ESP8266 Module

Connection

Then I used FOCA instead of the FTD232 converter.

The FOCA board has the same pins as FTD232 board plus those pins in which you can connect XBee to your PC.

So it can be easily used as a USB to TTL converter.

Make sure to put the voltage selector switch on 3.3V so you don’t harm the ESP8266 board.

Test Circuit

This circuit is a simple LED Blinker that uses ESP8266 to blink an LED.

Code

/*********
  Rui Santos
  Complete project details at http://randomnerdtutorials.com  
*********/
int pin = 2;
void setup() {
  // initialize GPIO 2 as an output.
  pinMode(pin, OUTPUT);
}
// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
  digitalWrite(pin, HIGH);   // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
  delay(1000);               // wait for a second
  digitalWrite(pin, LOW);    // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
  delay(1000);               // wait for a second
}