{"id":3915,"date":"2018-04-30T13:02:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T20:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/?p=3915"},"modified":"2025-09-09T19:29:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T02:29:34","slug":"developing-cc-firmware-for-the-esp32-wrover-module","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/tutorials\/esp32\/wrover\/","title":{"rendered":"Developing C\/C++ Firmware for the ESP32 WROVER Module"},"content":{"rendered":"

This tutorial shows how to create a basic project for the ESP32\u00a0WROVER-KIT-3 module,\u00a0program the FLASH memory\u00a0and debug it via the on-board JTAG. We will create a basic project\u00a0that will blink\u00a0the red, green and blue on-board LEDs from different FreeRTOS threads and will show how to debug it and change various configuration-related\u00a0settings.<\/p>\n

Before you begin, install VisualGDB 5.4 or later.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Start Visual Studio and open the\u00a0ESP-IDF\u00a0project wizard:\"01-newprj\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Select “Create a new project based on a sample project”:\"02-newsample\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. On the next page select\u00a0the location of your ESP32 toolchain. If you don’t have any toolchains installed yet, click “Download more toolchains” and VisualGDB will automatically install a compatible ESP32 toolchain:\"03-toolchain\"<\/a>Update:<\/strong> For better compatibility with the latest ESP32 tools, we recommend selecting the consolidated toolchain<\/a> instead.<\/li>\n
  4. The next step is to select the sample project that will be used as a template for our project. Pick the “Blink” project from the “get-started” folder and click “next”:\"04-blink\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. In order to\u00a0enable the on-board JTAG debugging functionality, install the 7 jumpers (may not included with the board) as shown below:\"wroverconn\"<\/a>WARNING: the picture above shows the previous version of the ESP-WROVER board. If you are using ESP-WROVER v4.1 or later, see this page<\/a> for the exact names and locations of the jumpers<\/strong>. Once the jumpers are installed, connect the board via USB.<\/li>\n
  6. VisualGDB should\u00a0automatically recognize the board as long as you are using the latest ESP32 toolchain:\"05-devkit\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Click “Test” to automatically test the JTAG connection. VisualGDB will automatically install all necessary drivers and will use the correct JTAG settings:\"06-test\"<\/a>Finally Press “Finish” to create the project.<\/li>\n
  8. By default, the “ledblink” project will\u00a0toggle the GPIO #5\u00a0that is not connected to any on-board LEDs.\u00a0To change this, we will first need to look up the GPIO numbers for the RGB LED from the ESP-WROVER-KIT schematic<\/a>:\"rgb\"<\/a>Then open VisualGDB Project Properties and set the “Blink GPIO Number” to 0, corresponding to the red LED:
    \n    \"07-blink\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  9. If you build and run your project now, it\u00a0will\u00a0repeatedly blink the red LED.\u00a0To support 3 independent LED channels, we will now modify the KConfig.projbuild<\/strong> file\u00a0to have 3 separate configuration options instead of just 1:\n
    menu \"Example Configuration\"\r\n\r\nconfig BLINK_GPIO_RED\r\n int \"Red LED GPIO number\"\r\n range 0 34\r\n default 5\r\n help\r\n GPIO number (IOxx) to blink on and off.\r\n Some GPIOs are used for other purposes (flash connections, etc.) and cannot be used to blink.\r\n GPIOs 35-39 are input-only so cannot be used as outputs.\r\n\r\nconfig BLINK_GPIO_GREEN\r\n int \"Green LED GPIO number\"\r\n range 0 34\r\n default 5\r\n help\r\n GPIO number (IOxx) to blink on and off.\r\n Some GPIOs are used for other purposes (flash connections, etc.) and cannot be used to blink.\r\n GPIOs 35-39 are input-only so cannot be used as outputs.\r\n\r\nconfig BLINK_GPIO_BLUE\r\n int \"Blue LED GPIO number\"\r\n range 0 34\r\n default 5\r\n help\r\n GPIO number (IOxx) to blink on and off.\r\n Some GPIOs are used for other purposes (flash connections, etc.) and cannot be used to blink.\r\n GPIOs 35-39 are input-only so cannot be used as outputs.\r\n\r\n\r\nendmenu<\/pre>\n
    \"08-rgbconfig\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  10. Save the file and reopen VisualGDB Project Properties. Now you can set the pin numbers for the red, green and blue LEDs\u00a0via the regular ESP-IDF configuration GUI:\"09-gpios\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  11. Change the main file extension to .cpp and replace its contents with the following code:\n
    struct BlinkParameters\r\n{\r\n    gpio_num_t Pin;\r\n    unsigned Period;\r\n};\r\n\r\nvoid blink_task(void *pvParameter)\r\n{\r\n    struct BlinkParameters *pBlinkParameters = (struct BlinkParameters *)pvParameter;\r\n \r\n    gpio_pad_select_gpio(pBlinkParameters->Pin);\r\n    \/* Set the GPIO as a push\/pull output *\/\r\n    gpio_set_direction(pBlinkParameters->Pin, GPIO_MODE_OUTPUT);\r\n    while(1) {\r\n        \/* Blink off (output low) *\/\r\n        gpio_set_level(pBlinkParameters->Pin, 0);\r\n        vTaskDelay(pBlinkParameters->Period \/ 2 \/ portTICK_PERIOD_MS);\r\n        \/* Blink on (output high) *\/\r\n        gpio_set_level(pBlinkParameters->Pin, 1);\r\n        vTaskDelay(pBlinkParameters->Period \/ 2 \/ portTICK_PERIOD_MS);\r\n    }\r\n}\r\n\r\nextern \"C\" void app_main()\r\n{\r\n    \/\/The period definitions must be static, as otherwise they would be located on the stack \r\n    \/\/and would get overwritten once the threads actually start up.\r\n    static struct BlinkParameters pins[] = {\r\n        { .Pin = (gpio_num_t)CONFIG_BLINK_GPIO_RED, .Period = 200}, \r\n        { .Pin = (gpio_num_t)CONFIG_BLINK_GPIO_GREEN, .Period = 500, },\r\n        { .Pin = (gpio_num_t)CONFIG_BLINK_GPIO_BLUE, .Period = 1000 }\r\n    };\r\n \r\n    for (auto &pin : pins)\r\n        xTaskCreate(&blink_task, \"blink_task\", configMINIMAL_STACK_SIZE, &pin, 5, NULL);\r\n}<\/pre>\n
    It will create 3 instances of the blink_task<\/strong> thread, each one targeting a different LED with a different period:\"10-code\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  12. Press F5 to\u00a0start debugging and observe the RGB LED. You will see each channel\u00a0toggling with its own period:\"wroverled\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  13. Set a breakpoint after one of the gpio_set_level() calls. The\u00a0breakpoint will get\u00a0immediately triggered by one of the threads. You can see the other threads via the Debug->Windows->Threads command:
    \n    \"11-stack\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  14. Another option to quickly view\u00a0various ESP-IDF threads would be via Debug->Parallel Stacks command. It will immediately show that 2 threads are waiting inside the vTaskDelay() function called from blink_task() while 1 thread is directly executing the blink_task():\"12-pstack\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  15. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    This tutorial shows how to create a basic project for the ESP32\u00a0WROVER-KIT-3 module,\u00a0program the FLASH memory\u00a0and debug it via the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[138,143,64],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3915"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9045,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915\/revisions\/9045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}