Its likely all was, more or less, working form the start! Since I had already tried the sketch in the link you provided exactly as written with no luck, I decided to start eliminating bonehead-style issues. Beforehand, I purchased a combo pack of five steppers with five driver boards and decided to eliminate the stepper/driver as an issue after having successfully blinked an LED - so my NodeMCU E12 was apparently working. And, if my driver board was working I figured I should at least have seen some sort of blinking on the LEDs on the driver - and I hadn't ever seen that.
When I opened a new sealed pack with a second driver I noticed it had a small jumper at the power input that the other brand new one didn't seem to have installed. I'd like to blame the supplier, but nope - it was me all along! If you carefully look at the picture I submitted, at the middle of the external power supply there is a set of male pins on yellow plastic and you'll see what became of that important little bit of plastic that I, at first, didn't remember where it came from - so I stuck it across a couple of ground pins on the power supply for safe keeping!! Did I mention I am a noob?? LOL
Thanks for your help by insisting those sketches should have worked! I could have spent many more days searching for a "correct" sketch before finding my error.
rudy wrote:Do the lights on the driver board change?
Wow, I missed this reply from you, Rudy - you were definitely on the right track!! Thanks!!