XIAO NRF52840 BLE - USB and BLE Issues

[NutNick]

Hello,

I have the xiao ble/seeed studio nrf52840 and I'm trying to run the following SDK projects using armgcc:

- usbd_hid_composite

- ble_app_hids_keyboard

No matter what I do, I can't see the device show up in Windows 11 via bluetooth or USB. The ble hids keyboard does show up on my phone via the nordic connect app though and blinky does work just fine; so the board is operating.

• I have done the following:
  • modified the make file to support the xiao ble board setup
  • I've modified the linker script so that the bootloader does not get overwritten: 

MEMORY
{
FLASH (rx) : ORIGIN = 0x00027000, LENGTH = 0x100000
RAM (rwx) : ORIGIN = 0x20000000, LENGTH = 0x40000
}

• I convert the hex file to the corresponding UF2 format using the following command (this device uses the adafruit easy uf2 bootloader):
  • py uf2conv.py nrf52840_xxaa.hex -c -f 0xADA52840
  • link to bootloader: https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_nRF52_Bootloader
  • digest from bootloader:

UF2 Bootloader 0.6.2-12-g459adc9-dirty lib/nrfx (v2.0.0) lib/tinyusb (0.10.1-293-gaf8e5a90) lib/uf2 (remotes/origin/configupdate-9-gadbb8c7)
Model: Seeed XIAO nRF52840
Board-ID: Seeed_XIAO_nRF52840_Sense
Date: Nov 30 2021
SoftDevice: S140 7.3.0

Also, the nordic sdk version is: "nRF5_SDK_17.1.0_ddde560"

Please let me know if other information is needed. I just need some guidance to understand why Windows Bluetooth and USB HIDS will not detect the device. And no the device doesn't even show up as an undefined device...

Thank you,

Nick

[Vidar Berg]

Hi Nick,

I'm glad to hear that you were able to find the problem with the BLE example. I'm not sure what the problem was though - Make should only invoke the toolchain specified in Makefile.Windows. It does not look for toolchains in PATH env. variable. 

NutNick said:

I've modified the linker script to have the same components as the "ble_app_hids_keyboard" project but it doesn't seem to work:

The USBD example does not include the softdevice/ble stack so the application must be linked to start on top of the MBR at 0x1000 instead. Please try with this memory layout instead:

MEMORY
{
  FLASH (rx) : ORIGIN = 0x1000, LENGTH = 0xff000
  RAM (rwx) :  ORIGIN = 0x20000008, LENGTH = 0x3fff8
}

Flash layout with bootloader and MBR

[NutNick]

Hi Vidar,

There is a possibility that my strange setup caused the problem. I'm using mingw and I've installed make manually. I'm not sure! All I know is that bluetooth is working properly now after changing my PATH environment variable :/

As for the USB project, I modified the linker script but am still unable to successfully run the example (windows does not show the USB composite device). I'll try to see if I can look more into the sdk_config.h to see if there is anything that this board doesn't support... and I'll try other USB examples in the meantime.

Thank you,

Nick

[Vidar Berg]

Hi Nick,

I guess the most important thing is that it works now. With regards HID over USB, could you please try the 'usbd_hid_generic' example with the same linker script to see if that works? 

[NutNick]

Hi Vidar,

I tried that example too but still nothing showed up for me in Windows.

The CDC COM port for USB did show up when I ran the "usbd_ble_uart" example though. At least USB shows up in some form. HID seems to be an issue.

Thanks,

Nick

[Vidar Berg]

Hi Nick,

Please try the attached hex file and see if it works. I built it from the usbd_hid_generic project.

3034.nrf52840_xxaa.hex

Best regards,

Vidar