Programming a custom external board using nRF52832 dk

[connorshannon]

Hello, 

For my project I am making a custom circuit board which is pretty much just the nRF52832 chip and the surrounding capacitors and whatnot. I'd like to program this circuit board using my nRFdk, but am unsure how to do it. I actually have two of the dk circuit boards, and I was trying to use one to program the other to test the process before trying it on my custom circuit board. However, I was running into some issues.

I suppose my question is this: How can I program my custom board using the development kit I already have?

I've seen other posts where people were able to program and external board using a dk, but many of these weren't resolved. Additionally, the ones that I saw were resolved seemed to have a key difference when compared to my situation, such as using the 9 pin connector debug in to program an external board (my custom board doesn't have this, only the connections directly to the nRF52832. Happy to provide more information, so let me know if that is needed. Additionally, if it isn't possible to program my custom board this way it would be good to know. 

Thank you!

[runsiv]

Hi 

Could you elaborate a bit regarding the "only the connections to the nRF52832"? 

In general you need at least VDD, SWCK, SWDIO and GND to flash a board. You can read more about programming a board using custom connections for the nRF52832 here

Regards

Runar

[connorshannon]

By that I meant that effectively my custom board is just the nRF52832 chip, which I am trying to program using my development kit. On my custom board, I don't have the special 9 pin connector. I talked a little bit about my problem here and got some feedback which I was trying to clarify by making this post. I'll try the connections in the page you shared tomorrow.

I suppose that the simplest version of the questions I have are:

1. Can I program an external nRF52832 using the development kit I have (assuming I have access to all the pins on the external chip)?

2. Is it possible to test this by programming another development kit, or is there no way to directly access the nRF52832 pins on the development kit?

Thank you!