How to use WaveTek nRF51822 BLE Shield (design for Nordic) ?

[chtsai]

I am a newer for Nordic's BLE. and has WaveTek nRF51822 BLE Shield (design for Nordic), and downloaded the S110 softdevice version 7.3.0 and the wavetek_connectivity _s110v1.0.0.hex(.hex file) to the chip got from Nordic web without error through the SWD I/F of STM32 Nucleo board.

But The App (nFR UART 2.0) in my android smart phone can't find this BLE device. so I can't go further now.

I want to use the UART ( PC side ) connect to it and do some test in the WaveTek BLE shield, to see any TX and RX data can correctly display between the PC terminal application and the APP(nFR UART 2.0) in the BLE smart phone.

so first I want to make sure the wavetek BLE shield can be scanned by APP . but has problem. Anyone know the right steps/process to achieve the gold (test UART I/F) in the Wavetek BLE shield ? Or can provide a suggestion how to do simple UART test through the examples in the Nordic's S110 SDK ?

Thanks

[run_ar]

Have you seen the user guide here. There are also some example applications available here.

[chtsai]

I did read the user guide and example but the example is for STM32L152RE Nucleo platform, not my STM32F030R Nucleo platform so I can not use the example FW directly, so I just download S110 softdevice and the wavetek's connectivity to nRF51822. then use the PC uart connects to the UART I/F(TX/RX) of Wavetek BLE shield directly and try to do some TX/RX test but has problem (can't find it in APP). Could the Wavetek's BLE shield can work as standalone device and been found by APP of smart phone after I just download the S110 and connectivity ? What's the right process to test wavetek's BLE shield(design for Nordic) as stand alone BLE device with APP ? Any suggestions are welcome.

[run_ar]

If you want the Wavetek board to be discoverable when using the connectivity app, you need to run an application on your STM32 to control the device. However for brief testing you could program the shield with the softdevice and one of the examples in our SDK. There is a precomiled applicaiton in the hex folder in each example, e.g. nRF51_SDK_10.0.0_dc26b5e\examples\ble_peripheral\ble_app_uart\hex. However this will not be controllable from the STM32.

If you want to interface the nRF51 using your STM32 board I think you should port one of the STM32L152RE examples, or on of the serialization examples in the SDK.

[chtsai]

Hi ran_ar, Appreciate your information, I download the "nRF51_SDK_10.0.0_dc26b5e" and the example hex file (ble_app_uart_s130_pca10028.hex) in nRF51_SDK_10.0.0_dc26b5e\examples\ble_peripheral\ble_app_uart\hex as your description, but still can find this BLE device. have some questions for more help!

1. This application FW need work with softdevice 10.0.0 ? my BLE device is preload with softdevice version 7.3.0. also it seems this application is for S130 not S110 , Is it ok to work with S110 ?
2. I use the SWD and UART I/F of STM32 Nucleo to do the download and test UART TX/RX with the Wavetek's BLE shield. Can SWD I/F be used as flash I/F and debug I/F for nRF51822 in Keil v5 MDK ? (I had tested to flash hex file and it works, but I flash the softdevice 7.3.0 hex file and application hex file one by one and the debug(ICE) function seems also work ) because of I don't have J-link debug adapter right now. (Is it ok to flash hex files one by one, could the softdevice been overwrite by the later one ?) and the UART protocol what I tested is 38400bps, n,8,1 (Is it right ?)
3. The nRF UART v2.0 APP will find only one device 68:64:4B:09:0B:13 with Resi=-78 and I selected it ,and display that: connected to: null , I tried to send some characters but display : device does not support UART. Here I wan to know what device name will show in this nRF UART APP ? to make sure it's the device running in the BLE shield.
4. This application FW is for pca10038 , Is it also works on the Wavetek's BLE shield ? (use the same pins as RX/TX etc.)

Appreciate your time.

[chtsai]

Hi , I also test a very simple sample code (blinky_blank_pca10028) not use the softdevice in the wavetek's BLE shield, with below modification in the main.c file

#define WAVETEK_LEDS_LIST { 3, 4, 5 } // wavetek;shield has 3 leds in p0.03,p0.04,p0.05 //const uint8_t leds_list[LEDS_NUMBER] = LEDS_LIST; //this for pca10028 4 leds const uint8_t leds_list[3] = WAVETEK_LEDS_LIST; LEDS_CONFIGURE(0x0038); //LEDS_MASK It can work, so this wavetek's BLE shield should be ok for test !, could help point out which example in sdk can do the simple uart TX/RX test (without external MCU) for the wavetek's ble shield ?