Hi

Its in Comments … just click setup executable below

WHQL Certified. Includes VCP and D2XX.

Available as a setup executable

for windows 10

https://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/InstallGuides/AN_396%20FTDI%20Drivers%20Installation%20Guide%20for%20Windows%2010.pdf

Yes, I recommend following what Derek suggested. Can you download the executable file and run it?

I tried in on my lap top, and the message was, it already has the latest drivers, no further action required. So I assume the lap top is done.
The desk top was a different matter – when I downloaded it, it appeared as a zip file; I extracted it, located the CDM2128_Setup.exe file. When I clicked on it, it said it was extracting the file??  Then it said the file could not be executed. Any further advise on the desk top? 

Hi
what is your version of windows and have you run windows update recently …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyoey66EU9w
watch this … check Device Manager when you have the FTDI cable connected from here it can download the driver for you

 scan for hardware changes

This has been a real trash! I have WinZip application installed on my computer. Every time I try to follow instructions for installing –  either automatic or manual the cursed WinZip comes up & takes over. If I choose extract it creates an *.exe form of the file.

Then I can no longer use the FTDI Wizard to complete the installation.

As an alternative I went to Device Manager=>Ports=>com6=> Then I got manufacturer: FTDI, Location: on USB serial Connection, Status: This device is working properly.

Apparently, in blundering around I have managed to install the FTDI driver.
Am I required to use Com 6 whenever I need to use the FTDI controller to upload a new Sketch to my ESP8662-14F, and the Serial.print commands?

Thanks for your patience.

I have moved onto the next problem. I decided to try using the FTDI controller to see if I could upload a Sketch that has worked previously to an ESP14F.

Here are the connections between the FDTI on the right & ESP14F on the left:

FTDI Controler :

• GND – GND, GPIO15, GPIO0 :ESP14F
• Vcc – Vcc, CH PD (EN)
• Tx – Rx
• Rx – Tx

For my effort, I got a raft-load of error messages!  Any idea what went wrong & how to fix it?

I’m glad you made the drivers install. What’s the error message that you got? Can you post your exact error message?

Here is. I couldn’t find a separate link to attach the error code!

esptool v0.4.13 - (c) 2014 Ch. Klippel <>

 setting board to nodemcu
 setting baudrate from 115200 to 115200
 setting port from COM1 to COM6
 setting address from 0x00000000 to 0x003FC000
 setting erase size to 0x00004000
 setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
opening bootloader
resetting board
trying to connect
 flush start
 setting serial port timeouts to 1 ms
 setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
 flush complete
 espcomm_send_command: sending command header
 espcomm_send_command: sending command payload
 serialport_receive_C0: 1C instead of C0
trying to connect
 flush start
 setting serial port timeouts to 1 ms
 setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
 flush complete
 espcomm_send_command: sending command header
 espcomm_send_command: sending command payload
 serialport_receive_C0: 03 instead of C0
trying to connect
 flush start
 setting serial port timeouts to 1 ms
 setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
 flush complete
 espcomm_send_command: sending command header
 espcomm_send_command: sending command payload
 serialport_receive_C0: E0 instead of C0
resetting board
trying to connect
 flush start
 setting serial port timeouts to 1 ms
 setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
 flush complete
 espcomm_send_command: sending command header
 espcomm_send_command: sending command payload
 espcomm_send_command: receiving 29408 bytes of data
 serialport_receive_C0: 80 instead of C0
trying to connect
 flush start
 setting serial port timeouts to 1 ms
 setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
 flush complete
 espcomm_send_command: sending command header
 espcomm_send_command: sending command payload
 serialport_receive_C0: E0 instead of C0
trying to connect
 flush start
 setting serial port timeouts to 1 ms
 setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
 flush complete
 espcomm_send_command: sending command header
 espcomm_send_command: sending command payload
 serialport_receive_C0: 1B instead of C0
resetting board
trying to connect
 flush start
 setting serial port timeouts to 1 ms
 setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
 flush complete
 espcomm_send_command: sending command header
 espcomm_send_command: sending command payload
 serialport_receive_C0: 1B instead of C0
trying to connect
 flush start
 setting serial port timeouts to 1 ms
 setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
 flush complete
 espcomm_send_command: sending command header
 espcomm_send_command: sending command payload
 serialport_receive_C0: 03 instead of C0
trying to connect
 flush start
 setting serial port timeouts to 1 ms
 setting serial port timeouts to 1000 ms
 flush complete
 espcomm_send_command: sending command header
 espcomm_send_command: sending command payload
 serialport_receive_C0: E0 instead of C0
warning: espcomm_sync failed
error: espcomm_open failed
error: espcomm_open failed

Hi. It looks like your ESP board is not in flashing mode. That’s what that error means:

error: espcomm_open failed
error: espcomm_open failed

Basically, it was not able to start uploading the code and it failed.

• Please double-check the connections between your FTDI programmer.
• Also, GPIO 0 needs to be connected to GND so that you’re able to upload code.
• The TX goes to RX and the RX goes to the TX pin.
• After that, select the right board and COM port in the Tools menu.
• Before uploading the code and making sure that GPIO 0 is connected to GND. Put the RESET pin to HIGH (connected to 3.3V) Then, click the Arduino IDE upload button

Things have gone from bad to worse. Having no luck with the desk top, I decided to switch to my lap top which yesterday was working perfectly with a sophisticated Sketch on a NodeMCU 1.0 (ESP-12E module).

First I tried connecting to the FTDI-controller connected to the ESP-14F and uploading my previously successful Sketch – failure with lots of error messages. So I connected the previously successful Sketch to my NodeMCU 1.0 (ESP-12E module).

It now it failed & other previously successful Sketches failed too !  It looks like my Arduino IDE is trashed !  I’m beginning to suspect the original driver download may have caused all of this because it rearranged all the port numbers & also made my mouse behavior erratic for several restarts. I’m considering deleting my Arduino IDE and reinstalling it, but I will wait for further instructions from you. Do you have chat capability? I’m going to send you that last set of error messages, in another massage.

Here are the error messages I promised you:

esptool.py v2.6
2.6
esptool.py v2.6
Serial port COM4
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\Don\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.5.2/tools/upload.py", line 25, in <module>
esptool.main(fakeargs)
File "C:/Users/Don/AppData/Local/Arduino15/packages/esp8266/hardware/esp8266/2.5.2/tools/esptool\esptool.py", line 2652, in main
esp = chip_class(each_port, initial_baud, args.trace)
File "C:/Users/Don/AppData/Local/Arduino15/packages/esp8266/hardware/esp8266/2.5.2/tools/esptool\esptool.py", line 222, in __init__
self._port = serial.serial_for_url(port)
File "C:/Users/Don/AppData/Local/Arduino15/packages/esp8266/hardware/esp8266/2.5.2/tools/pyserial\serial\__init__.py", line 88, in serial_for_url
instance.open()
File "C:/Users/Don/AppData/Local/Arduino15/packages/esp8266/hardware/esp8266/2.5.2/tools/pyserial\serial\serialwin32.py", line 62, in open
raise SerialException("could not open port {!r}: {!r}".format(self.portstr, ctypes.WinError()))
serial.serialutil.SerialException: could not open port 'COM4': FileNotFoundError(2, 'The system cannot find the file specified.', None, 2)
serial.serialutil.SerialException: could not open port 'COM4': FileNotFoundError(2, 'The system cannot find the file specified.', None, 2)
Also at the top of the message which I was not able to access:
Serail,serialutil. SerialException. Could not open 'com4' FileNotFounfError(2, The system could not find the specified file:None 2)

Hello again, I apologize for the trouble following these steps, but here’s what I think it’s happening:

1. Your drivers seem to be properly installed
2. Your Arduino IDE installation seems to be correct (you don’t need to re-install anything)

Here’s what that error means:

serial.serialutil.SerialException: could not open port 'COM4': FileNotFoundError(2, 'The system cannot find the file specified.', None, 2)

This means that COM4 port is being used. Do you have multiple Arduino IDE windows? Or Serial monitors open? That often causes that error message.

With your Arduino IDE open, remove the board. Does the COM port disappear in your Tools menu? If you plug it again which COM port number appears?

Thanks for your patience throughout this process.

What you said about the Com ports proved to be true, When done correctly I have my Lap top “Almost” functioning. (I do notice, however, the physical  ports and the numbers on the ports have changed since installing the new driver.)

I connected the lap top to the FTDI controller, which is plugged into my ESP-14F. I also realize I may have the wrong board chosen, so I switched from the NodeMCU to the Generic ESP8266 Module, and I got the following response in orange letters (This is really not an error message).

esptool.py v2.6
2.6
esptool.py v2.6
Serial port COM4
Connecting....
Chip is ESP8266EX
Features: WiFi
MAC: 84:0d:8e:8c:b0:e8
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Configuring flash size...
Auto-detected Flash size: 4MB
Flash params set to 0x0340
Compressed 280288 bytes to 202405...
Writing at 0x00000000... (7 %)
Writing at 0x00004000... (15 %)
Writing at 0x00008000... (23 %)
Writing at 0x0000c000... (30 %)
Writing at 0x00010000... (38 %)
Writing at 0x00014000... (46 %)
Writing at 0x00018000... (53 %)
Writing at 0x0001c000... (61 %)
Writing at 0x00020000... (69 %)
Writing at 0x00024000... (76 %)
Writing at 0x00028000... (84 %)
Writing at 0x0002c000... (92 %)
Writing at 0x00030000... (100 %)
Wrote 280288 bytes (202405 compressed) at 0x00000000 in 18.0 seconds (effective 124.7 kbit/s)...
Hash of data verified.
Leaving...
Hard resetting via RTS pin...

This is the kind of response I get when the Sketch runs correctly. However, none of the Serial.print messages showed up in the Serial Monitor.

(Also these responding messages are quite different with the 1.8.9 Vs the 1.8.6.)  My desk top is still messed up, but lets take one problem at a time. Any further comments?

God bless you for all the patience you have shown here.  I’d probably taken up fishing instead of playing with Arduino stuff without your help.

I left all connections unchanged all settings the same and reran the thing again, and got completely different results. This time, these look like error messages:

Sketch uses 276140 bytes (55%) of program storage space. Maximum is 499696 bytes.
Global variables use 27492 bytes (33%) of dynamic memory, leaving 54428 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 81920 bytes.
esptool.py v2.6
2.6
esptool.py v2.6
Serial port COM4
Connecting........_____....._____....._____....._____....._____....._____.....____Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\Don\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.5.2/tools/upload.py", line 25, in <module>
esptool.main(fakeargs)
File "C:/Users/Don/AppData/Local/Arduino15/packages/esp8266/hardware/esp8266/2.5.2/tools/esptool\esptool.py", line 2653, in main
esp.connect(args.before)
File "C:/Users/Don/AppData/Local/Arduino15/packages/esp8266/hardware/esp8266/2.5.2/tools/esptool\esptool.py", line 468, in connect
raise FatalError('Failed to connect to %s: %s' % (self.CHIP_NAME, last_error))
esptool.FatalError: Failed to connect to ESP8266: Timed out waiting for packet header
_
the selected serial port _

does not exist or your board is not connected

Exactly! The first message that you’ve posted: 

Wrote 280288 bytes (202405 compressed) at 0x00000000 in 18.0 seconds (effective 124.7 kbit/s)...
Hash of data verified.
Leaving...
Hard resetting via RTS pin...

It should also say in your Arduino IDE window “Done uploading” means that you code was uploaded to your board successfully.
After that, you need to:

• Remove GPIO 0 from GND
• Open the Arduino IDE Serial Monitor window at the correct baud rate
• Restart your ESP, so it prints information in the serial monitor

I appreciate your willingness to make it work, but however using an FTDI programmer and bare chip it’s definitely not the best way to get started. I recommend a NodeMCU board or a WeMos D1 Mini for the ESP8266.
In the second attempt that it prints:

Connecting........_____....._____....._____....._____....._____....._____.....___

Do you have GPIO 0 connected to GND, did you reset your board before pressing the upload button in the Arduino IDE? 

I FINALY GOT IT !!
I have several NodMCU’s, which I have used to develop my Sketches. I am using 4 units usefully running remotely in my garage using batteries & ESP-14F Units.
I had two problems:

1. My Zip application was interfering with the driver download.
2. There were two missing instructions: Connect GPIO 0 to GND & RST to VCC for uploading, then remove GPIO 0 from GND & touch RST to GND momentarily to restart the ESP.

Thank you for your incredible patience !

No problem! I’m happy to help. As I’ve said, I still recommend a NodeMCU board or a WeMos D1 Mini for the ESP8266. It has built-in programmer, so it’s much easier to use!

I have 3 NodeMCU’s, which I have successfully user to develop many Sketches.  It’s now time to use ESP-14F to go to battery operated deep sleep operations.

Got it! I thought it was your first time and that’s why I was suggested using boards with built-in programmer for prototyping. I’ll mark it as Closed, if you have more questions feel free to open a new thread: https://rntlab.com/ask-question