New ESP8266 - cannot do simple blink project

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

Hi,
Up until now, I have only been using Arduino units. First time ever, I have purchased an ESP8266 12E to make an IoT project. Just as I usually do with Arduino unit, I tried to run a simple blink project but I am not getting normally expected results. Here is what I have:

Unit: ESP8266 12E, Vendor DOIT.AM, Model: ESP8266MOD

Connected to computer directly via USB cable. No breadboard or any other device connected.

In Arduino, I have selected: NodeMCU 1.0 (ESP-12E Module)

#define LED D0            // Led in NodeMCU at pin GPIO16 (D0).
void setup() {
pinMode(LED, OUTPUT);    // LED pin as output.
}
void loop() {
digitalWrite(LED, HIGH);// turn the LED off.(Note that LOW is the voltage level but actually 
                        //the LED is on; this is because it is acive low on the ESP8266.
delay(1000);            // wait for 1 second.
digitalWrite(LED, LOW); // turn the LED on.
delay(1000); // wait for 1 second.
}

Result:

Build options changed, rebuilding all
Sketch uses 257696 bytes (24%) of program storage space. Maximum is 1044464 bytes.
Global variables use 26572 bytes (32%) of dynamic memory, leaving 55348 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 81920 bytes.
esptool.py v2.6
2.6
esptool.py v2.6
Serial port COM4
Connecting....
Chip is ESP8266EX
Features: WiFi
MAC: 2c:f4:32:57:a8:2g
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Configuring flash size...
Auto-detected Flash size: 4MB
Compressed 261856 bytes to 191266...

Writing at 0x00000000... (8 %)
Writing at 0x00004000... (16 %)
Writing at 0x00008000... (25 %)
Writing at 0x0000c000... (33 %)
Writing at 0x00010000... (41 %)
Writing at 0x00014000... (50 %)
Writing at 0x00018000... (58 %)
Writing at 0x0001c000... (66 %)
Writing at 0x00020000... (75 %)
Writing at 0x00024000... (83 %)
Writing at 0x00028000... (91 %)
Writing at 0x0002c000... (100 %)
Wrote 261856 bytes (191266 compressed) at 0x00000000 in 16.9 seconds (effective 123.7 kbit/s)...
Hash of data verified.

Leaving...
Hard resetting via RTS pin...

Serial Monitor gives me some ascii characters that I can't make any sense of.

During flashing, I can see the device LED blicking etc but after that, nothing happens.

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you.

2

It is not unusual to see some seemingly random characters during the start up of an ESP as it is essentially an odd baud rate and is the bootloading.
A little googling will find you just what I said.

As far as the BLINK program not working some ESP's have the LED on different pins.

Sometimes it is better to use the newer BLINK EXAMPLE as it uses a slightly different method to set the pin number

void setup() {
  // initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
  pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
}

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH);   // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
  delay(1000);                       // wait for a second
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW);    // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
  delay(1000);                       // wait for a second
}

Note the use of the word "LED_BUILTIN" with no pin number.

Bob.

3

Thank you Bob. I tried the new blink program but got the same results. After the "Hard Resetting via RTS Pin" message, I do not see any activity at all on the unit.

I now tried another piece of code and this one seems to be working so I am guessing it is something to do with how LED is accessed on this particular device model. I used the following code and received an IP address.

#include<ESP8266WiFi.h>
const char* ssid = "myssid";
const char* password = "mypassword";   

WiFiClient wifiClient;

void setup() {
 Serial.begin(115200);
 Serial.print("Connecting to ");
 Serial.println(ssid);  
 WiFi.begin(ssid, password);
 while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
   delay(500);
   Serial.print(".");
 }
 Serial.println("");
 Serial.println("WiFi connected");  
 Serial.println("IP address: ");
 Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());

 
}

void loop() {
 
}

ballscrewbob:
It is not unusual to see some seemingly random characters during the start up of an ESP as it is essentially an odd baud rate and is the bootloading.
A little googling will find you just what I said.

As far as the BLINK program not working some ESP's have the LED on different pins.

Sometimes it is better to use the newer BLINK EXAMPLE.....