nRF52840 Dongle - Communicate With Arduino Via UART

RE: nRF52840 Dongle - Communicate With Arduino Via UART

runsiv — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 05:11:36 GMT

Hi Peter

Which SDK are you using for your application?

When you say Arduino, which arduino are you referring to since Arduino is really just a software platform. As long as the board running Arduino has the same gpio voltage uart should not be an issue,. If the Arduino in question is one based on the 8bit AVR's you will need level shifter on the UART since the AVR's is running at 5V while the 52840 is running on 3v3V. Since you said you have a DK I would suggest to start working with the DK as the dongle is not ment suited for development due to lack of debugger and less access to GPIO pins. However you could solder on wires to flash the dongle from the DK and use the DK as debugger for the dongle. If you flash the dongle with another FW it will overwrite the bootloader that is already there you can use it as it was just another 52840.

Regards

Runar

RE: nRF52840 Dongle - Communicate With Arduino Via UART

Frivolous4121 — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 04:39:39 GMT

I see. I don't have any trouble writing the firmware necessary to perform my goals.

RE: nRF52840 Dongle - Communicate With Arduino Via UART

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 22:56:04 GMT

It means the MCU nRF52840 itself supports mutiprotocol. In order to use it, you write the firmware yourself using the SDK. The Dongle serve as utility tools. Bluetooth sniffer to test you BLE firmware. You can flash precompiled examples code. That's it.

The BlueIO832Mini board is on the hand is an application board. It is shipped with preload firmware that allows you to do many things without writing code. A UART bridge is one of the applications. You use the free Apps to configure what you want to do. For exemple capturing the ADC, use the BlueIOSigCap to configure the board to send ADC & digital value over Bluetooth. The BlueIODevin allows you to configure the 4 GPIO pins as SPI or I2C then send read or write command to it to access the device that is connected to those pins. All that without writing any code at all. Of course you can use another App to configure the pin to send PWM signal to the connected device as well.

RE: nRF52840 Dongle - Communicate With Arduino Via UART

Frivolous4121 — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 22:51:33 GMT

[quote userid="3482" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/113022/nrf52840-dongle---communicate-with-arduino-via-uart/493771"]Nordic software that runs un the Dongle is only BT by the way. [/quote]

Not sure what exactly you mean by this, but the Nordic board supports multiple protocols as listed in the first sentence from their product landing page.

RE: nRF52840 Dongle - Communicate With Arduino Via UART

Frivolous4121 — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 22:48:54 GMT

[quote userid="3482" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/113022/nrf52840-dongle---communicate-with-arduino-via-uart/493770"]

Well, I designed it. The firmware is optimized for speed that Nordic exemple code can't.

See it this way. How much time did you spend struggling on this ? How much you worth by hours ? Multiply that together see how much it costs you.

[/quote]

Well, I'm not in it for any speed contest so that is not a critical design consideration for me.

I see your point, but this is the only problem that I haven't been able to solve and its only been one day of researching a solution. I'm not dead in the water either. There are other nRF52840 boards out there that do come with built-in UART for the price point I would be happy with. I'd just like to see if I can NOT introduce Yet Another Board to my ecosystem.

RE: nRF52840 Dongle - Communicate With Arduino Via UART

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 18:39:59 GMT

[quote userid="134949" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/113022/nrf52840-dongle---communicate-with-arduino-via-uart/493762"]nRF52840 Dongle that is available for ~$10 each and offers multiple communication protocols[/quote]

The Dongle is the same nRF52840 as the Nordic dongle. Beside form being more expensive it is the same nRF52840. Why would it not able to support multi protocol. Nordic software that runs un the Dongle is only BT by the way.

RE: nRF52840 Dongle - Communicate With Arduino Via UART

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 18:18:05 GMT

Well, I designed it. The firmware is optimized for speed that Nordic exemple code can't.

See it this way. How much time did you spend struggling on this ? How much you worth by hours ? Multiply that together see how much it costs you.

RE: nRF52840 Dongle - Communicate With Arduino Via UART

Frivolous4121 — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 04:26:32 GMT

At $50 - $80 per unit and limited to just BT as a communication protocol for what you suggested I think I would find another solution at a far better price point! Are you affiliated with this project or have some hands-on knowledge that would convince me to use it vice the venerable nRF52840 Dongle that is available for ~$10 each and offers multiple communication protocols?

RE: nRF52840 Dongle - Communicate With Arduino Via UART

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 02:19:18 GMT

perhaps something like this is what you need

https://www.crowdsupply.com/i-syst/blueio832-mini

https://x.com/isyst_inc/status/1778960958922109132