Setting Up

IDE

Download and set up the Arduino IDE

Once this is done you will need to install some libraries.

• Adafruit_NeoPixel

• ReelTwo

The neopixel library can be installed as per a standard module in the IDE. The ReelTwo library will need to be installed manually.

Installing ReelTwo

Go to ReelTwo repository, and click the big green 'Code' button. There should be an option to download a zip file.

With that downloaded you need to find your Arduino libraries directory. This is different on various version and operating systems. If you go to File->Preferences then you should see Sketchbook Location. The libraries directory is under that folder.

Unzip the ReelTwo file you downloaded into the libraries file and restart the Arduino IDE.

Checking ReelTwo installation

When you restart the IDE you should be able to go to file->examples and find ReelTwo in the list.

Installing the ESP32 board library.

As the Astropixels run on an ESP32 and that board is not in the default installation, you need to add a board library.

Go to File->Preferences and add this to the box labelled 'Additional Boards Manager URL'

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_index.json

Then you can go to Tools->Board->Board Manager

This will open up a window from which you can install the ESP32 library. Enter ESP32 in the search bar and you should see an entry by Espressif Systems available.

Select the latest 2.0.* version and click install.

There is currently a bug in the ReelTwo library which makes it incompatible with the latest v3 ESP32 board libraries.

Testing

You should now be able to go to File->Examples->ReelTwo->astropixels to open the basic sketch

Hit compile at the top of the IDE and it should all compile cleanly.