Review on 🔌 HiLetgo ESP8266 NodeMCU CP2102 ESP-12E Development Board: Ideal for Arduino IDE/Micropython; Large Size by Justin Falker

I have over 100 different microcontrollers that I use and have tried on various projects. There's never a one-size-fits-all solution, but this board has one big advantage - the price. If you're familiar with the variety of boards, you probably know that the more features you want, the higher the price. Many of the boards I've used, with built-in Wi-Fi, USB programming, and lots of ports, can cost upwards of $20. From the start, this board supports multiple ways to program it. The two most popular are (in my opinion) Micro Python and the Arduino IDE, both of which offer great support. After installing the driver, it appears as a USB device and is easy to program. This makes it a great entry level board for any beginner as well as a suitable board for more advanced use. Wi-Fi is easy to use and reliable. I have successfully connected it to various cloud services (tested with Adafruit IO and Arduino Cloud). Some have complained that the port assignments don't match the board. This is true and not true. If you understand the difference between Arduino port assignments and how manufacturers assign numbers (pins) to their GPIO ports, you can understand why it's different, but you don't need to understand anything to use the board. If you install the board driver in the Arduino IDE, you can use pinouts like D0 and D1 as you see it on the board. Of course you can also use GPIO pin numbers. If you want to see the pinout in more detail, please click on the pinout image in the product description and print it out. This is an excellent resource. Also, the internet is full of examples and explanations on how to get the most out of this board. It's open source and a lot of people use it. Check out Adafruit as they have a board called Huzzah which is based on ESP8266 and looks similar. In fact, I built a plant monitoring system with Huzzah and then replaced it with this board (I needed more ports). My latest project, a crop monitoring and irrigation system, uses an SPI device (MCP3008), an I2C device. (TSL2591) for brightness control and several other sensors. I built a small voltage regulator using an LM7805 to provide 5V on the Vin pin and I used the 3.3V pin to power my sensors. I'm driving a 12V motor directly from the power supply using an N-channel MOSFET and PWM from a digital pin to control the speed. The versatility of this board is amazing, again at such a low price! My only criticism of this board is that it only has one ADC port that can only measure 0 to 1V. As I've encountered this limitation on other boards and it's not a HiLetgo design limitation, I'll give it a go I still give this board 5 stars. I'm using an inexpensive MCP3008 ADC chip and it works great adding 8 ADC channels to my project. If you want to see an example of my schematic and code, search my name on GitHub and check out the Plant Monitor and Watering System repository. When using this board, you should be aware that some pins serve multiple purposes, so you should be careful when using them (this applies to all ESP8266 based boards). For example, GPIO15 (D8) is used to determine the boot mode and should be LOW at device startup. There is a similar requirement for GPIO2. An internet search will give you lots of simple instructions and help you avoid problems with these ports. Again, these are ESP8266 limitations, not HiLetgo's design, so I'm not reflecting that in the review. I also confirmed what other reviewers say, i.e. you can program this at full speed: 921600. I had no problem with this COM speed. Overall I'm not saying this is the best and only board you can buy. I'm thinking about features and price; This is one of my favorites!