Keyestudio ESP32 Easy Coding Board

1. Description

Keyestudio ESP32 Easy Coding Board is equipped with 520KB dynamic memory, 4MB flash memory and 240MHz dual-core processor to easily run a variety of real-time operating systems, like freeRTOS. Besides, its low-power Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities are excellent for wireless communication.

This board also integrates a variety of sensors on its board: The temperature and humidity sensor monitors ambient temperature and humidity in real time; The six-axis acceleration gyroscope obtains motions and acceleration; The ambient light sensor captures ambient light intensity; The SD card interface saves the detected data; The microphone detects ambient sound, and the buzzer plays music; Buttons A and B, 7 touch keys on the board can be used as switches; 5x5 RGB dot matrix displays numbers, letters and patterns with stepless dimming.

Therefore, it is widely applided to STEAM teaching, IoT, intelligent control projects, and a variety of DIY creative works.

ESP32 board is welded with gold-finger expansion pins, including all IO pins, 19 digital ports, 7 analog ports, I2C, UART and SPI interfaces.

This board is compatible with a variety of programming languages, including Arduino, MicroPython and graphical programming KidsBlock3.0, and development environment of multiple boards. It is suitable for users with different programming levels.

Compared ESP32 Easy Coding Board with Micro:bit


Name	ESP32 Easy Coding Board	Micro:bit V2
Suitable crowd	Primary, junior high, senior high	Primary, junior high
Processor	ESP-WROOM-32	nRF52833-QIAA
Dimensions	52*51mm	52*43mm
Memory capacity	SRAM:520KB Flash:4MB	SRAM:16KB Flash:256KB
Programming languages	KidsBlock3.0 C/C++ microPython	JavaScript C/C++ microPython
I/O ports	digital I/O pins: 19 analog input pins: 6 PWM pins: 13	digital I/O pins: 19 analog input pins: 6
Communication	a. low-consumption Bluetooth 4.2 b. wireless Wifi	low-consumption Bluetooth 4.2
Onboard function	a. 2-channel button b. 7-channel touch input c. 3-axis acceleration d. 3-axis gyroscope e. light sensor f. 5x5 RGB dot matrix g. temperature&humidity sensor h. SD card slot i. passive buzzer j. microphone k. Power detection l. I2C interface (2.54 pin headers)	a. 2-channel button b. 3-channel touch input c. 3-axis acceleration d. 3-axis magnetometer e. light sensor f. 5x5 LED dot matrix g. temperature sensor
Introductory	★★★★★	★★★★★
Practicability	★★★★★	★★
Expansibility	★★★★	★★★

2. Technical Specifications

Power supply: USB power; DC power(PH2.0); gold-finger I/O port power
Operating voltage: 3.3V
Operating current: 100mA
ESP32 main control:
- Processor: ESP32-D0WDQ6 (dual-core)
- Basic frequency: up to 240MHZ
- SRAM:520KB
- Flash:4MB
- WiFi protocol: 802.11 b/g/n (802.11n, fast to 150 Mbps)
- WiFi operating frequency range: 2412 ~ 2484 MHz
- Bluetooth protocol: meet Bluetooth v4.2BR /EDR and BLE standards
- Bluetooth RF: NZIF receiver with -97 dBm sensitivity
- Bluetooth audio: CVSD and SBC audio
Onboard resources:
- 2-channel digital buttons (A and B buttons)
- MPU6050 six-axis acceleration gyroscope
  - Maximum rotation speed: 2000°/s
  - Acceleration range: ±2g，±4g，±8g，±16g
- Light sensor: phototransistor ALS-PT19-315C
- Microphone: 4013-SMD
- Buzzer: MLT-8530AAC3V
- 25 RGB: WS2812-2020 RGB-LED
- Temperature and humidity sensor: AHT20
- SD card expansion interface
- Power of supply detection module: INA180A1IDBVR
- I2C expansion port (2.54 pin headers)
Extension interface:
- 19-channel digital I/O port (partially multiplexed with on-board resources)
- two 8-bit DAC (io25, io26)
- 7 touch pins (io2, io4, io12, io13, io15, io27, io32)
- 13 PWM pins (io2, io4, io5, io12, io15, io16, io18, io19, io23, io25, io26, io27, io32)
- 3-way UART device (any pin), support for hardware flow control and DMA
- 2 I2C devices (any pin), support host or slave mode
- IR remote control (any pin) 8-channel IR transceiver, support different waveform standards.

3. Programming Methods

1. Arduino:

Download Arduino IDE

A.Windows System

Step 1: You could download Arduino IDE from the official website：https://www.arduino.cc/

Step 2: Enter the link and click SOFTWARE:

Step 3: There are various versions of IDE for Arduino. Just download a version compatible with your system. Here we will show you how to download and install the windows version of Arduino IDE.

Tap “Windows win 10 and newer 64 bits”

Step 4: You just need to click JUST DOWNLOAD.

Step 5: After the download is complete, we will get the .exe file, as shown below:

Step 6：Right-click “arduino-ide_2.2.1_Windows_64bit.exe” and tap “Open”.

Step 7：Tap “I Agree”.

Step 8：Tap “Next”

Step 9：First click ① “Browse…” to set the installation path of Arduino IDE, then click ② “Install”.

Step 10：Wait for installation to complete.

Step 11：Click “Run Arduino IDE” and “Finish”.

B. MAC System

Just download a version compatible with your computer system.

Install CH340 Driver

Windows System

Download: https://fs.keyestudio.com/CH340-WINDOWS

Windows 10 (and later systems) boasts their own drivers, so there is no need to install additional drivers.

Connect the control board to your computer.

Click Computer– Properties – Device Manager, as shown below. This indicates a successful connection, so the installation of driver is not required.

If the following situation occurs, you need to manually install the driver.

Click to select “Update driver”. And then the driver will start to install.

Tap “Browse my computer for drivers”.

Find the file usb_ch341_3.1.2009.06 or cp210x you have downloaded, and click “Next”.

After finishing installing, click “Close” and the serial port number will show up.

The driver is successfully installed!

Click Computer– Properties – Device Manager to check:

MAC System

Step 1: Download the driver from the Website and extract the file to the local installation directory.

Step 2: For details about how to install the driver in pkg format by default, see Step 3. If OS X 11.0 or later does not support Rosetta, refer to Step 4 to install the dmg driver.

Before installation, please forward to “System Preferences” -> “Security & Privacy” -> “General” page, below the title “Allow apps downloaded from:” choose the choice 2 -> “Mac App Store and identified developers”, then the driver will work normally.

Step 3: To install the driver in pkg format, tap the driver file → Continue→ Install

Then the installation will be successful.

To install the pkg format driver on OS X 11.0 and later: Open “LaunchPad” → “CH34xVCPDriver” → Install.

When using OS X 10.9 to OS X 10.15, click “Restart” to restart your computer, and perform the following steps after the restart.

Step 4: To install the dmg driver, tap the dmg file and drag “CH34xVCPDriver” to enter the application folder in the operating system.

Then open “LaunchPad” → “CH34xVCPDriver” → Install.

Then the installation will be successful.

When inserting the CH340 control board into the USB port, open System Report -> Hardware ->USB. On the right is USB Device Tree. If the USB device is working properly, you will find a device whose “Vendor ID” is [0x1a86].

Open “Terminal” program under Applications-Utilities folder and type the command “ls /dev/tty*”.

You should see the “tty.wchusbserialx” where “x” is the assigned device number similar to Windows COM port assignment.

Windows Arduino IDE ESP32 Development Board

Windows

Typically, we cannot find ESP32 board from “Board” in “Tools”. Because we have not install this board on Arduino IDE yet.

Here are the procedures of ESP32 board installation:

Open Arduino IDE.

Click “Arduino IDE ——>Preferences”.

Copy the link of ESP32 board (https://espressif.github.io/arduino-esp32/package_esp32_index.json) to Additional boards manager URLs, and tap OK.

Click the icon of “Board Manager” to check for boards.

In the search bar, type in ESP32 and search to install the latest version. Then you just need to wait a few minutes for the installation to complete.

During installing, please ensure the stability of network. If it fails, please operate last step again to re-install.

After installation, select the right board model.

Choose the correct COM port.

If there are so many ports that you have no idea which is the correct one, you may unplug the board to check which one disappears. If there is no COM port, please check whether the driver is installed.

In our demostration, the port is COM3, so we click “Tools” to choose “COM3” in “Port”.

If your board is successfully connected, it will show on the interface. Now you can try to upload code. An examples code is provided here: it will print “Hello Keyestudio!” per second.

Copy and paste the following code to Arduino IDE:

/*
  keyestudio 
  Print “Hello Keyestudio!”
  http://www.keyestudio.com
*/
void setup() {  
    // put your setup code here, to run once:
    Serial.begin(9600);  //Set the serial port baud rate to 9600
}

void loop() {  
    // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
    Serial.println("Hello Keyestudio!");  //Serial port printing
 	delay(1000);  //Delay of 1 second
}

Click to compile the code. If it succeeds, the following two show up:

While uploading, if it outputs “————………————………”, please press and hold “Boot” button on your board. However, this only works for Keyestudio ESP32 development board (Keyestudio Plus ESP32 is excluded).

Click and set baud rate to 9600, and “Hello Keyestudio!” are being printed!

“Toggle Autoscroll”: To set whether to follow the print.
“Toggle Timestamp”: To set whether to display printing time.
“Clear Output”: To clear the output data.
Serial Input
Serial port sending format
Baud rate: To set the baud rate.
Printing box.

This is the end of how to upload code!

Now please import libraries for IDE, otherwise an error will occur.

MAC

Here are the procedures of ESP32 board installation:

Open Arduino IDE.

Click “Arduino IDE ——>Preferences”.

Copy the link of ESP32 board (https://espressif.github.io/arduino-esp32/package_esp32_index.json) to Additional boards manager URLs, and tap OK.

Click the icon of “Board Manager” to check for boards.

In the search bar, type in ESP32 and search to install the latest version. Then you just need to wait a few minutes for the installation to complete.

During installing, please ensure the stability of network. If it fails, please operate last step again to re-install.

It is successfully installed!

After installation, select the right board model.

Choose the correct COM port.

If there are so many ports that you have no idea which is the correct one, you may unplug the board to check which one disappears. If there is no COM port, please check whether the driver is installed.

In “Tools”, click “Port” to select “/dev/cu.usbderial-0001”.

If your board is successfully connected, it will show on the interface.

Now you can try to upload code. An examples code is provided here: it will print “Hello Keyestudio!” per second.

Copy and paste the following code to Arduino IDE:

/*
  keyestudio 
  Print “Hello Keyestudio!”
  http://www.keyestudio.com
*/
void setup() {  
    // put your setup code here, to run once:
    Serial.begin(9600);  //Set the serial port baud rate to 9600
}

void loop() {  
    // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
    Serial.println("Hello Keyestudio!");  //Serial port printing
 	delay(1000);  //Delay of 1 second
}

Click to compile the code. If it succeeds, the following two show up:

While uploading, if it outputs “————………————………”, please press and hold “Boot” button on your board. However, this only works for Keyestudio ESP32 development board (Keyestudio Plus ESP32 is excluded).

Click and set baud rate to 9600, and “Hello Keyestudio!” are being printed!

“Toggle Autoscroll”: To set whether to follow the print.
“Toggle Timestamp”: To set whether to display printing time.
“Clear Output”: To clear the output data.
Serial Input
Serial port sending format
Baud rate: To set the baud rate.
Printing box.

This is the end of how to upload code!

Now please import libraries for IDE, otherwise an error will occur.

2. MicroPython:

Download and Install Thonny：

Thonny is a free and open source software platform with small size, simple interface, simple operation and rich functions. It is a Python IDE suitable for beginners. In this tutorial, we use this IDE to develop a ESP32. Thonny supports multiple operating systems including Windows, Mac OS, Linux.

Download Thonny：

1). Enter the website：https://thonny.org to download the latest version of Thonny.

2). Thonny open-source code library：https://github.com/thonny/thonny.

System	Download link
MAC OS：	https://github.com/thonny/thonny/releases/download/v3.2.7/thonny-3.2.7.pkg
Windows：	https://github.com/thonny/thonny/releases/download/v3.2.7/thonny-3.2.7.exe
Linux：	Latest version: Binary bundle for PC (Thonny+Python): bash <(wget -O - https://thonny.org/installer-for-linux) With pip: pip3 install thonny Distro packages (may not be the latest version): Debian, Rasbian, Ubuntu, Mint and others: sudo apt install thonny Fedora: sudo dnf install thonny

Install Thonny (Windows System):

1). The downloaded Thonny icon is as follows:

2). Double-click“thonny-3.3.13.exe”and select install mode. You can choose

3). You can also keep selecting Next to finish install.

4). If you want to change the route of installing Thonny，just click“Browse…”to select a new route and click OK.

5). Click Create desktop icon, you will view Thonny on your desktop.

6). Click“Install”

7). Wait for a while but don’t click Cancel

8). Click “Finish”

Basic Setting：

Double-click Thonny, choose lanuage and initial settings and click Let’s go！

Click“View”→“File”and“Shell”