To program the NodeMCU V1.0 your development platform (PC, Mac, Linux) needs to detect the CP2102 Serial-To-USB adapter. If your platform does not come with this driver you can download and install it from here: https://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspxUPDATE: it seems that there are different versions of the NodeMCU produced. Some of them use the CH340 chip for serial-to-usb conversion. If you got one of those you can find the driver here:

• Win: http://en.doit.am/CH341SER.zip
• Mac: http://www.doit.am/CH341SER_MAC.ZIP

Go to https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software and download the latest version. Now pick the version matching your operating system. For Mac OS X for instance you download a ZIP file which you  then have to extract. Take the extracted application “Arduino” and move it to your Applications folder.

For Windows you have the option between an executable installer and a ZIP file. The ZIP file might be the better option if you do not have administrator permissions on your system. The installer on the other hand can put the libraries in the proper places.

A tool chain is the set of tools that lets you compile and create binaries for a certain platform. Since we want to create binaries for the ESP8266 we need a different tool chain than the one that comes with the plain vanilla Arduino IDE.

• Open the Arduino IDE
• Go to your preferences/settings and in the text box “Additional Board Manager URLs” enter this URL: http://arduino.esp8266.com/package_esp8266com_index.json
• Now go to Tools > Board: … > Boards Manager…, search the ESP8266 board and click install
• Get a coffee and wait until it finishes

4. Selecting the Correct Board

5. Setting the Correct Port

You will program the NodeMCU through the USB connection. For your PC or Mac this interface looks like a serial connection (see paragraph about the driver). If everything worked well and your operating system could detect the NodeMCU V1.0 as serial device, it should show up in the Menu under Tools > Port. On my Mac the device is called /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART

If you cannot see a device that looks like the NodeMCU, try to unplug the ESP module and re-plug it after a few seconds. If that doesn’t help consider restarting your computer… Make sure that you installed the driver as mentioned in paragraph 1.

Thanks for bearing with me until we come to the really cool part. We are going to run our first program on the NodeMCU! In the Menu go to File > Examples > ESP8266Wifi and select WiFiScan

A new window will open up. This window is your current project and is also called a “Sketch”. To transfer this sketch to the NodeMCU V1.0 click on the green circle that contains an arrow. If everything went well this will compile the sketch and upload the binary to the ESP. If everything worked well it will look like this:

If everything worked well, click on the magnifying glass on the top right of the window. This is the serial console that you can use to see output from the NodeMCU module or also to send commands to the device. Make sure that the baud rate is set to 115200. This rate is also set in the example code and if you have a different setting the ESP will talk with a different speed than your PC listens. This will result in strange characters… My output looks like this:

If you see something similar: congratulations! You have just set all the preconditions to run the WeatherStation code.

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