How to increase response range of nRF52832 in Bluetooth Mesh?

RE: How to increase response range of nRF52832 in Bluetooth Mesh?

master.chipset — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 08:44:09 GMT

Hi again Joakim
Thanks a lot because of your complete and exact response.

Have a good time
Mehdi Sadeghian

RE: How to increase response range of nRF52832 in Bluetooth Mesh?

Joakim Jakobsen — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 15:11:32 GMT

Hi again.

[quote user="master.chipset"]How soldering the exposed pad of nRF52832 can affect the antenna range?[/quote]

The response I got was that this would probably be fine for prototyping, but could result in reduced performance. But with no indication about how much it would affect it.

[quote user="master.chipset"]Can selecting the internal LDO regulator affects the antenna range compared with internal DCDC regulator?[/quote]

It could cause 1-2 dB less sensitivity for the nRF52832 with DCDC compared to LDO. This could also be worse if the exposed pad isn't soldered.

[quote user="master.chipset"]How new versions of chip can affect the antenna range?[/quote]

As far as I know this shouldn't affect the range noticeably.

Br,
Joakim

RE: How to increase response range of nRF52832 in Bluetooth Mesh?

Joakim Jakobsen — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 10:29:10 GMT

Thanks.

Not 100% sure about this, I'll have to ask internally before I can get back to you with an answer on this.

Br,
Joakim

RE: How to increase response range of nRF52832 in Bluetooth Mesh?

master.chipset — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 07:19:12 GMT

Thanks a lot Joakim for your quick and complete reply.
I'm here with new questions.
How soldering the exposed pad of nRF52832 can affect the antenna range?
As I learned by Nordic documents, it's very important to provide a very good ground plane for the chip. But because I soldered the chip by hand, I couldn't solder the exposed pad.
Can selecting the internal LDO regulator affects the antenna range compared with internal DCDC regulator?
My PCB configuration is based on internal DCDC regulator.
How new versions of chip can affect the antenna range?
I saw that in some posts, Nordic engineers ask about the version code of chip. For my, the chip version is E0 and is manufactured in 23th week of 2018:
N52832
QFAAE0
1823FC

Best regards
Mehdi

RE: How to increase response range of nRF52832 in Bluetooth Mesh?

Joakim Jakobsen — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 23:48:07 GMT

Hi.

1) Why do you expect the range to differ som 1mbps and 2mbps?

2) Increasing the TX power would be the best bet to increase the range significantly. Having only 4m is very low, but that might be due to HW limitations.

3) This might be because the communication before provisioning is significantly "lighter" compared to after. And less prone to packet loss.

4) Not sure, but it might be related to the antenna or hw layout on the phone is allowing it to maintain longer range.

5)
There are more then one way to "tune" the antenna, but the best and fastest way is to connect it to a Networks analyzer and modify length and matching components.

It is possible to simulate and calculate what size, width, length an so on would be best and do simulations with matching components to get the best possible result. This would have to be incorporated in to the design before production.

Easiest option is to send two devices to us and we can do the tuning of the antenna as well as match the radio for best performance.

Br,
Joakim