Getting Started with Master Control Panel

RE: Getting Started with Master Control Panel

antoine — Sat, 19 Dec 2015 00:56:33 GMT

Thank you. I got it working. I can't use the master control panel, but was able to listen to the port with a C# project. I went further and modified the UART app for my iPhone to receive ADC input measurements and send commands to NRF51 DK board, or to an external nRF51822 board. I have other questions but on a different subject. I guess I'd better start another post.

RE: Getting Started with Master Control Panel

Ulrich Myhre — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 09:35:32 GMT

You should be able to flash both the softdevice and the application using nRF Go. Please also make sure you are using the most recent version of it. It's likely that the device resets upon getting the debugger connected, which starts the chip and goes straight to HardFault because of no app present.

And yes, you cannot use Bluetooth 3.0 devices to discover the Low Energy devices introduced in 4.0. The SoftDevices from NordicSemi has only the LE type of devices. I thought you were using the MCP on your computer (with the dongle/devkit) to discover, so I assumed you were on the correct hardware.

You will need a 4.0 (or better, 4.1/4.2) compatible adapter if you want to discover LE devices yes :) If you bought a kit with a nRF51822 dongle in it, you can flash the Master Emulator Firmware on this and use it as a peer for testing.

RE: Getting Started with Master Control Panel

antoine — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 00:32:36 GMT

Thx a lot. The Learning curve looks steep.

I didn't find any solution yet for the "download failed". I was under the impression that, either I program the SoftDevice with nRF go and I can download the HRM with Keil, or I program the firmware for MCP but Keil will not load HRM. When I program the firmware MFEW nRF51822 using MCP, does it not erase the Softdevice and make the load of HRM impossible?

As for my incapacity to discover the device (I remembered BLE start with bluetooth 4.0), is this simply because of my oldish hardware: PC with bluetooth 3.0, iMac with LMP 0x4 (which means prior version of Bluetooth) I guess I need to get a Bluetooth 4.0 USB adapter?

RE: Getting Started with Master Control Panel

Ulrich Myhre — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 13:47:50 GMT

It looks like you solved this problem already. You have to flash the correct firmware for MCP to be able to work.
This means that the device is not advertising properly. There could be many reasons for this, but remember that in the heart rate example, advertising times out after some time and the chip goes to sleep. You need to push a button to wake up the chip again and restore advertising. It could also be the iPhone connecting to the chip and making it stop advertising.
A likely problem is that the chip is sleeping again, or hardfaults/resets/sleeps whenever the debugger attaches. This causes the debugger to fail to connect properly. Doing a search for "Download failed" here on DevZone should give you some solutions to this.
The chip is likely not advertising. Could you check if it you are able to discover your device through nRF Toolbox? If you are not discovering it with MCP, but nRF Toolbox can see it, then it's likely that there is a range or interference issue near the device connected to the computer. Try moving it to a USB hub or something that's closer to the HRM device.