Published September 10, 2021

NanoFramework Esp32

Control chip with Nano Framework

BeginnerFull instructions provided5 hours3,139

Things used in this project

Hardware components

esp wroom32 dev board v1

cp2102

7 Segment LED Display, InfoVue

Male/Female Jumper Wires

Breadboard (generic)

Software apps and online services

visual studio 2019

.NET nanoFramework Visual Studio extension

Story

Hi every one

Did you hear about nanoframework?!

.NET nanoFramework – Making it easy to write C# code for embedded systems.

This is interesting because You Can Develop for Hardware’s with High Level Develops Language Like C# and Without any OS!

Today Microsoft.net Core is Really Cross Platform :-)

I was very eager to Test nanoframework, after some research I found nanoframework support some chips (GitHub - nanoframework/Home: The landing page for nanoFramework repositories.) so I decided to test it myself.

Let’s start with esp32 dev kit v1 and seven segment.

1. Install cp2102 Driver

CP210x USB to UART Bridge VCP Drivers - Silicon Labs (silabs.com)

1. Connect CP2102 to Esp32 dev board v1

Cp2102 RX pin to esp32 TX

Cp2102 TX pin to esp32 Rx

Cp2102 Ground to esp32 Ground

Note: you don’t need to connect v3.3 pins if you want to use adapter power for Esp32

1. Connect Cp2102 To Your PC, You should see CP2102 Port in Device Manager

1. Install VisaulStudio

Download Visual Studio Tools - Install Free for Windows, Mac, Linux (microsoft.com)

1. Install Nanoframework Extension

1. Install nanoFirmwareFlasher

nanofirmware flasher tool allows to flashing a.NET nanoFramework target with nanoBooter, nanoCLR, managed application or backup files

you must install it, this is simple

(before install nanoFirmwareFlasher you must installed dotnet SDK .NET SDKs downloads for Visual Studio (microsoft.com))

Open PowerShell as administrator

Type “dotnet tool install -g nanoff”

1. Now you are ready to flash esp32

Open PowerShell As Admin (like step 4) and Type “nanoff --update --target ESP32_WROOM_32 --serialport COM6”

You must replace Com6 with your cp2102 port in your pc (step 3)

Note: when you see this message “*** Hold down the BOOT/FLASH button in ESP32 board ***” you must hold EN button and Boot button together for few second (3 second) then release theme

(when you hold En button and Boot Button, esp goes to Downloading Mode)

1. After Install was completed, Disconnect CP2101 Usb port And Restart Esp32 (power off and on) then connect Cp2101 Usb To PC

Now Open Visual Studio, in visual studio in Device Explore Page you Should See Esp32 device

2. Everything is OK Lets Go For Programing …

In visual studio create new project (search for nanoframework)

Then click on the project -> Deploy

Now you can do many works ;)

In this test I worked with GPI so I need some Library for Controlling GPI

Part Of My Code:

This Is Amazing. I think this is future of Microcontroller's Development

Code

Simple GPIO

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Threading;
using Windows.Devices.Gpio;

namespace NFApp2
{
    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            Debug.WriteLine("Hello from nanoFramework!");

            var gpioController = new GpioController();

            GpioPin pin27 = GpioController.GetDefault().OpenPin(27);
            pin27.SetDriveMode(GpioPinDriveMode.Output);
            pin27.Write(GpioPinValue.Low);


            GpioPin pin26 = GpioController.GetDefault().OpenPin(26);
            pin26.SetDriveMode(GpioPinDriveMode.Output);
            pin26.Write(GpioPinValue.Low);


            GpioPin pin25 = GpioController.GetDefault().OpenPin(25);
            pin25.SetDriveMode(GpioPinDriveMode.Output);
            pin25.Write(GpioPinValue.Low);


            GpioPin pin33 = GpioController.GetDefault().OpenPin(33);
            pin33.SetDriveMode(GpioPinDriveMode.Output);
            pin33.Write(GpioPinValue.Low);


            GpioPin pin32 = GpioController.GetDefault().OpenPin(32);
            pin32.SetDriveMode(GpioPinDriveMode.Output);
            pin32.Write(GpioPinValue.Low);

            GpioPin pin35 = GpioController.GetDefault().OpenPin(35);
            pin35.SetDriveMode(GpioPinDriveMode.Output);
            pin35.Write(GpioPinValue.Low);


            GpioPin pin34 = GpioController.GetDefault().OpenPin(34);
            pin34.SetDriveMode(GpioPinDriveMode.Output);
            pin34.Write(GpioPinValue.Low);

            Thread.Sleep(Timeout.Infinite);

        }
    }
}