NRF52840 IEEE802.15.4 Register Settings

RE: NRF52840 IEEE802.15.4 Register Settings

hmolesworth — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 01:35:22 GMT

Did you remember to configure the PA output pin control ports and set to transmit mode? I only ask since it looks like the PA is not enabled.

#define APP_PA_PIN  17
#define APP_LNA_PIN 19
#define APP_CHL_PIN  8
#define APP_CPS_PIN  6
nrf_gpio_cfg_output(APP_CPS_PIN);
nrf_gpio_cfg_output(APP_CHL_PIN);
nrf_gpio_pin_set(APP_CHL_PIN);
nrf_gpio_pin_clear(APP_CPS_PIN); //enable
pa_lna_init(APP_PA_PIN,APP_LNA_PIN);

and ..
PA_CTX_H;

RE: NRF52840 IEEE802.15.4 Register Settings

bobbo — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 01:17:51 GMT

Thanks for your thoughts. The packet sniffer has it's own RSSI appended and it says the signal strength is about the same as the older non-Nordic product. The antenna is built into the BT840X and unless there is a way of tuning an antenna built into the NRF52840, I'm pretty much stuck with whatever Fanstel provides in their product.

RE: NRF52840 IEEE802.15.4 Register Settings

Susheel Nuguru — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 07:41:24 GMT

[quote user="bobbo"]As mentioned, the ported code runs and I can reliably send and receive packets. [/quote]

If your protocol is working, then there are two things that come to my mind.

Antenna tuning on your board.
Some errata fixes like this ERRATA 236 might be relevant when you put a value in the TXPOWER register.

RE: NRF52840 IEEE802.15.4 Register Settings

bobbo — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 14:01:07 GMT

Thank You for noticing this post.

The design is a software port from existing working code from a non-Nordic device. The older code works at the register level so it was easiest to just adapt the code at the lowest level for the NRF52840. As mentioned, the ported code runs and I can reliably send and receive packets.

My issue is range. I've snooped the packets and the signal strength is similar to the non-Nordic device. Since there have been other posts from people trying to work with the radio at the register level, I hoped there would be someone who would review the settings and pass judgement on them for myself and potentially others. I wouldn't try this with Bluetooth but ZigBee seems simpler and, of course, the higher layers of code are ported from the old design.

RE: NRF52840 IEEE802.15.4 Register Settings

Susheel Nuguru — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 11:50:24 GMT

We support 802.15.4 transport layer both in nRF5SDK and nRF Connect SDK. Is there any reason for accessing the registers directly instead of using our drivers from the SDK?