Using NRF52 (NRF52832) as bluetooth module for my psoc 6

[kjs_eir]

Hi 

I have a mbed application, which runs on a PSOC6 MCU, i am going to be using a fanstel BC832 (which is based of NRF52832)BT module for RF-communication. To verify that my project can run on the fanstel module, I have the nRF52, until I get my board with the fanstel module. I am using mbed 5.14.1, which uses cordio stack for uart communication with the bt module. 

So i got two question: 
1) is there a specfic .hex which needs to be on my nRF52 when using it as a BT module? if, where can i find this? 
2) Might be out of scope, but how do i configure my mbed setup, so i am using the correct nordic drivers? 

Thanks 

[Hung Bui]

Hi Karl-Johan, 
I did a quick test here with the hci-uart and a peripheral_lbs sample and it seems to work fine. You can see in the plot of the 4 pins here: 

Zoom in when advertising data is sent: 

The CTS (on the host and RTS on the controller) asserted several times during the communication. 

Could you try to test on your side ? 
Attached is the host application (SDK v2.8.0). I used a nRF52840 DK for the host but it should be similar if you want to test on the nRF52832 DK.(you need to create an overlay file inside boards folder)

7701.peripheral_lbs.zip

Attached is the Saleae Logic trace: 

LBS.sal

[kjs_eir]

Hung Bui  I only have one nRF52 kit, but I can see with my FTDI chip, that flow control works as it should. 
My next issue is that i am not able to make the nRF52832 start advertising. I have tried two things

(1) My end setup is the PSOC with the BC832. Here is have modified the overlay file, so it fits with the different pin configuration for the HCI_UART example. And with my scope is can see Uart communication. Decoding this, should make the controller advertise, but I cannot detect it with my BT sniffers

(2) My second setup is the FTDI connect to the UART on the nRF52832, and transmitting the same command sequence to the controller. 

Here is the command sequence: 

"01030C00",  # HCI Reset

"01010C08FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF",  # HCI Set Event Mask

"0106200F0064006400000000000000000000000700",  # HCI LE Set Advertising Parameters

"010820070201060654657374",  # HCI LE Set Advertising Data ("Test")

"010A200101"  # HCI LE Enable Advertising

What am i missing? I can see the response on my scope and everything looks good.

[Hung Bui]

Hi Karl, 
It's been a while I haven't touched the HCI commands. I think the easiest is to get hold of one extra DK so that you can test with 2 nRF52 DK. 

Could you check my last logic trace to see if you can get any thing missing ? maybe you can send the exact same commands and check if it advertise ? 

[kjs_eir]

Hi Hung Bui 

I don't have anything software to open the .sal file, and I cannot read the commands of from the images. 
Is it possilbe for you to share a table, image or similar where I can read of the commands? 

Since I don't have two nordic boards, I have change med nRF52 DK with nRF52832 to running the peripheral_lbs sample, and connected it to another board running a controller FW. Here i am unable to make the controller start advertising, with the sample. I also see some weird commands being send by the host. A really long stream starting with 0x493A20[...], which my host of cause do not respond to because this is not inline with HCI: 

Thanks