How to install and setup Arduino on OS X

Here is Step by Step Guide With Video on How to install and setup Arduino on OS X. The Arduino Board Used in this Guide is Arduino UNO R3. This guide is not for Arduino compatible or Arduino Clones – you need to know their datasheet in that case.

How to install and setup Arduino on OS X : Required Hardwares

You need the Mac (any kind of Mac), the Arduino UNO R3 board and the USB cable given with the board to connect the board with computer. First insert the board end of the USB cable to the board. There is no need to plug the male end of the USB cable to Mac at this step.

How to install and setup Arduino on OS X : Required Softwares

You need two softwares. One is the commonly used GUI Application, that is the Arduino IDE, you will get that software from Arduino official website’s download section :

download the software and install it. You must drag the application icon to the application directory of OS X for rightly installing this software.

You need another software. This is virtual COM port driver. On Arduino’s website; you will get a hyperlink on their guide on getting started with Arduino :

The hyperlink, at the time of publishing this post, points towards this URL :

You will see a list of VCP Drivers. Install the most suitable one for you. The right one, at the time of publishing this post, is :

download this package and install it. You really need not to know what exactly happening. If you need to know what happened, you will see a new device from System Preferences > Network. It commonly appears as a modem. Restart your Mac. It is mandatory to restart.

After the restart, plug the Arduino UNO board to Mac with that USB cable and launch the Arduino GUI application – the first software you installed. You need to go to this Arduino application’s Tools menu option. On the Tools Menu options, the “Board” option will automatically show “Arduino UNO” as selected board. The next to this “Board” option on Tools menu, there will be Port. If you hover the mouse over the Port option, you will see a name of a device like /dev/cu.usb_modem (Arduino UNO). Click select this option. Your setup is complete.

We are using the software version 1.6.5. In this version, the example code we need to load is in :

Blink is the snippet you can upload on Arduino UNO board without any external stuffs. It can controls the Board’s one LED’s blinking rate. We have nicely shown the whole stuff as a guided video :

The snippet named BareMinimum is the factory default.
If you follow our guide, you will not face any problem. If the things do not work, then take the OS X System Report and ask in StackOverflow pointing towards this post.