CP2102 USB to UART cable drivers problem

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

Hello everyone,
I bought this USB to UART cable: CP2102 cable which has 5V and 3.3V VCC output. I will be using it to program a ESP8266. But the problem is that I'm not able to use it. I am using Windows 7 64-bit. I downloaded the drivers from SI labs website (drivers).

Next I downloaded Coolterm to try and communicate over the virtual COM port. However, Coolterm gives an error at startup saying no serial ports found. I tried checking in the "device manager" section and there's no entry there with any yellow triangle (like when there's a problem with some driver). I am not able to get it to be recognized in Windows.

what do I do? any help is appreciated.

2

Ok I think I figured it out. The Correct way to do this is:

  1. Install the SI labs drivers first.

  2. connect the USB-UART without the ESP8266 connected to it.

  3. The COM port should now be active.

  4. the ESP8266 can now be connected. However, it needs it own power. The USB-UART chip cannot
    supply enough current to power the ESP8266-01, which is kind of a bummer.

  5. Connect the grounds together, Rx->Tx, Tx->Rx. Now AT commands should work.