If you try to upload your code to the Arduino Pro Micro board as “Arduino Micro”, “Arduino Leonardo” or any other board because you can’t find any called “Arduino Pro Micro”, there is a big chance to brick your board by crashing its bootloader so it won’t be recognized by the PC at all anymore.
By default, “Arduino Pro Micro” is not listed in the selection of boards in the Arduino IDE as it is the Arduino-compatible board developed by SparkFun.
In this note i will show how to add the SparkFun boards, including the “Arduino Pro Micro”, to the board selection menu in the Arduino IDE.
Arduino Pro Micro Board Selection
In the Arduino IDE open “Preferences” (Ctrl + ,):
Top Menu -> File -> Preferences
Towards the bottom of the window, paste this URL into the “Additional Boards Manager URLs” text box: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sparkfun/Arduino_Boards/master/IDE_Board_Manager/package_sparkfun_index.json
Open “Boards Manager”:
Top Menu -> Tools -> Board: "Arduino Uno" -> Boards Manager...
Search for the SparkFun boards and install the “SparkFun AVR Boards” that include the desired “Arduino Pro Micro” board:
Once the SparkFun boards are installed you will be able to select the “SparkFun Pro Micro”:
Top Menu -> Tools -> Board: "Arduino Uno" -> SparkFun AVR Boards -> SparkFun Pro Micro
As well as to select the ATmega32U4 processor’s voltage and frequency:
Top Menu -> Tools -> Processor: "ATmega32U4 (5V, 16MHz)"
Hello, does it applies to Pro Micro clones? I followed your guide and when I go to “Tools > Get Board Info get” get the next message:
Board Info
BN: SparkFun Pro Micro
VID:
PID:
I’m very new to this, but with any other arduino clone got VID and PID fields filled, I can’t get recognized this Pro Micro recognized so I can upload the blink program, I connect the USB cable and get no power LED on