nRF52DK multiple hardware and software issues

[patjshan]

Hi All, 

I recently received a few dev kit boards that I intended to use for a test fixture we are building. I tried to use it in our test fixture which had been working fine with an older dev kit and it could not communicate with the device. I believe this is related to another ticket I found about the device having two COM ports associated with it. 

In playing around further with the board I also noticed I cannot program an external PCA with it and upon inspection saw that there was no GND DETECT silk screen on the PCA. The pin that I would usually expect to be the GND DETECT pin looks to be completely disconnected from any traces/vias on the board.

Out of curiosity I tried to use the board with the nRF Connect for desktop BLE scanner, and although the log claims it programmed the device successfully I am not allowed to start scanning .

I'm wondering if these boards are good or if we are entitled to some kind of refund if there is some kind of manufacturing error.

Label on the PCA reads:

PCA10040

3.0.4

2024.34

1050336273

[JONATHAN LL]

Hi, 

saw that there was no GND DETECT silk screen on the PCA.

On the newer boards there are no GND DETECT, this pin is no longer needed. 


You can use the following setup for programming external devices or other DK's. 

OR use the 10 pin connector with a ribbon cable from P19 port. 






https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-hardware/nRF52-DK/Download?lang=en#infotabs Here is the DK files, you can check here as well. 


Does the Programmer app successfully connect to the DK and you are able to read the device? 

Have you tested other applications ? Like the demo firmware available for download in the download section. 

Regards,
Jonathan

[patjshan]

Thanks Jonathan! I'll test out using the new pin out to program a custom board. 

I can successfully connect to the programmer app, and read and write to the device (although it always takes two write cycles to correctly program but that's something I've noticed with other boards as well, and even when using nrfjprog on the cmd line) 

with regards to the demo firmware I can download it but I'm having difficulty knowing what the intended application is. Its worth mentioning that I'm still doing all my development with the nRF5 SDK not on nRF Connect so I might be missing some context for this firmware.

thanks for the help 

[patjshan]

Ok, I think I've found the documentation. Sorry for jumping the gun, I was unaware of how much the dev kit and initial experience had changed in the nRF Connect era. Thanks for your help I'll mark the ticket as closed, I think the dev kit is built and functions as intended