Using radio_test sample on custom board.

[nicoled123]

Hi,

I want to run the radio_test sample on a custom board, how do I go about doing this?

The custom board uses a UBLOX NINA B401- which utilises the nRF52833 chip. Do you have any examples available for the UBLOX NINA B401 chip, including how to set up a dts for custom boards etc. 

I have the radio test sample running successfully using two nRF52840-DK boards, using nRF connect SDK on Visual Studio.

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

If you do not have board files fro your device yet you can add an overlay file that re-configures the UART pins for the DK to match your hardware, and connect to those pins. You can also simply change the pin configuration in the DK pinctrl file itself, and build for the DK. If so, update the uart0 pins in zephyr/boards/nordic/nrf52833dk/nrf52833dk_nrf52833-pinctrl.dtsi.

Also, if the module does not include the DCDC componts, set CONFIG_BOARD_ENABLE_DCDC=n in prj.conf. In the same way, if it does not include the 32.768 kHz crystall, set CONFIG_CLOCK_CONTROL_NRF_K32SRC_RC=y in prj.conf.

[nicoled123]

Thanks for your response! Do you have any examples available for the UBLOX NINA B401 chip and is it possible for the radio_test sample to work on it, or does it require any specific hardware that is in included in nrf52840-DK?

Is it only the UART pins i need to change in the overlay files or will there be others too?

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

The radio test sample does not requer any HW that is not present on that or any othe rmodule. But I see it does not have the 32.768 kHz oscillator, so you ned to use the CONFIG_BOARD_ENABLE_DCDC=n that I specified in my previous post. You can also add CONFIG_CLOCK_CONTROL_NRF_K32SRC_RC=y without any problem, though should not be needed. Then the only remaining thing is to update the UART pin configuration. I do not know which GPIO pins you have accessible for use with UART on your device, but get hold of those, and update the board file accordingly (you can just modify the DK borad file itself for simplicity), and that should be all. When you have programmed the sample you controll it via UART as explained in the sample documentation: Radio test (short-range).

[nicoled123]

I can build the radio test sample with no errors for the nrf 52840 DK. I now have a nrf52833 DK which I wanted to test the sample on before moving on to my custom board. However, i get a fatal error. do i need to do anything to make the radio test sample compatible with the nrf52833? 

ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.
FATAL ERROR: command exited with status 1: 'C:\ncs\toolchains\ce3b5ff664\opt\bin\cmake.EXE' --build 'c:\nordic\myapps\radio_test_1\build'

* The terminal process terminated with exit code: 1.
* Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it.

[nicoled123]