Simple quick start "blink" using PlatformIO on boards: Uno, DOIT ESP32 DevKit v1, NodeMCU v1.0 (ESP-12E)

1. pip install -U https://github.com/platformio/platformio-core/archive/develop.zip
2. vi ~/.bashrc (or .profile or zshrc...) and add export PATH="$PATH:~/.platformio/penv/bin"
3. close your terminal and reopen or source ~/.bashrc to reload the PATH
4. (optional) activate the virtual environment, . activate which should now be in the PATH
5. can you run the cli? pio? if not go here, https://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/installation.html

1. Just search for and install the extension PlatformIO
2. Open settings.json in VSCode (from the Command Palette type Preferences Open Settings (JSON))
3. Add the following (inside {...}),

    "platformio-ide.customPATH": "~/.platformio/penv/bin",
    "platformio-ide.useDevelopmentPIOCore": true
   

   note, customPATH probably isn't necessary since we added it to the PATH
4. Restart VSCode

The following is based on, https://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/quickstart.html

In step 3 the three boards are boards I am planning on using in this project. To use other boards just run pio boards and find the ID of the boards(s)

1. Open VSCode then open the folder the project will live
2. Open a terminal (preferably in VSCode) can cd to your working folder
3. run pio project init -b esp32doit-devkit-v1 -b nodemcuv2 -b uno
   • this will create a new file platformio.ini a Travis CI file, and some scaffolding, include, src, lib, test folders
4. confirm the platformio.ini contains the boards,

   [env:esp32doit-devkit-v1]
   board = esp32doit-devkit-v1
   framework = arduino
   platform = espressif32
   
   [env:nodemcuv2]
   board = nodemcuv2
   framework = arduino
   platform = espressif8266
   
   [env:uno]
   board = uno
   framework = arduino
   platform = atmelavr
   

1. use the cli an run , pio run this will take a minute to fetch the board firmware and build it. Look in the newly created folder /.pio to see what is pulled down
2. once everything is built then you need to upload the program (/src/main.cpp) to a board, this example uploads to the ESP8266 board, pio run -e nodemcuv2 -t upload. Note, if you have all your boards connected via a serial port then you don't need to specify -e or which environment to upload to

That is it, your board should be flashing. Note, in main.cpp your LED_BUILTIN pin may be 13 (Uno), verify your board's schematics for the pin usage.

pio device monitor -b 115200

This project doesn't need VSCode or the PlatformIO extension in VSCode. If you look closely at the commands executed, all that is needed is PlatformIO Core and the included CLI.