A first program with ESP8266/ESP-01, CLion and PlatformIO

When using the ESP8266 you also meet the ESP-01 and his CH340G adapter. You can buy both at aliexpress.

The Arduino IDE does not support coding with autocomplete, so I decided to use CLion. First you have to download an install CLion. (Don’t forget – CLion is not free)

Now install the Arduino and SerialPorts plugins:

Next you have to install PlatformIO. Because of working on a MacBook, I used Homebrew.

Next ist to install the Serial-to-USB Driver for the CH340.

So, now the preparations are finished. Let’s start to create an new project.

mkdir Blink
cd Blink
platformio init --ide clion --board esp01

To know, which board to use, you can use

platformio boards

or

platformio boards espressif8266

So, now we check, if the connection to the ESP8266 is working:

Plug in the ESP8266 and the programmer, but don’t bridge anything with a wire. Choose the port and the baud rate.

Now you can use the AT-commands for testing the communication.

AT

AT+GMR

Now open the project in CLion and create a source file. Pay attention, that the file ends with .cpp and write a small program like listed below. Don’t forget to #include "Arduino.h"

Wire the programmer like shown below

Connect it to the USP-port (maybe use a usb-hub for safety)
This small program comes from the examples in the Arduino-IDE (in the ESP8266-section):

#include "Arduino.h"
void setup() {
pinMode(BUILTIN_LED, OUTPUT);
}
void loop() {
digitalWrite(BUILTIN_LED, LOW);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(BUILTIN_LED, HIGH);
delay(2000);
}

Now compile and upload the program:

For compiling and uploading you can also use the build-button , but never the run-button .

When you want to upload again, you have to plug of and plug in again (?).

Sources:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Getting-Started-With-the-ESP8266-ESP-01/

https://www.xgadget.de/anleitung/esp-01-esp8266-mit-adapter-programmieren-so-gehts/

http://www.ches.pl/using-platformio-get-started-arduino-clion-ide/