Now that you’re familiar with the Arduino IDE menu items and sketch structure, have installed the board files and installed the libraries needed, the next step is to upload sketches or code to your board.
In this case, we’re going to use the WildLogger board and sketches as an example, but the process is the same for any board.
Selecting the board
To select the board, go to Tools/Boards and scroll down the list until you see “FreakLabs Wildlife” boards. Once there, choose “FreakLabs WildLogger” as the board.
Selecting the port
Next select the port that the device is plugged into. First it’s important to plug the USB serial board into the Wildlogger as shown:
Also plug the USB cable into the PC and into the USB Serial board
Once this is done, you should be able to see the USB port in the Arduino IDE by going to Tools/Port.
If you’re unsure which port to select, unplug the USB and then select Tools/Port to check the available options. Then plug in the USB and re-select Tools/Port. The option you didn’t see previously is the USB port associated with the device you just plugged in. This is the one you should select.
Compiling and uploading the sketch
Finally we will need an initial sanity check to make sure we can build code properly and upload it into the Wildlogger board. The easiest way to do this is to open the “Blink” example from the Arduino IDE in the “File/Examples/Basics” folder.
Select the Blink example and the code should open up. You should be able to use the code as-is.
Go to the Tools menu and make sure the correct Board is selected (Wildlogger v1.x) and the correct port is selected.
Once that’s confirmed, click on the upload button. It should build the code and start uploading it to your board. You will see the LEDs blinking as the code is being loaded into the board.
If everything goes well, the code will compile, get built, be uploaded into the Wildlogger, and at the end of it all, you should be able to see one of the LEDs blinking slowly.
It’s important to note, that when you download code to the board, it overwrites what’s already there.