Issues running BLE Central application on nRF52810 with S132 SoftDevice

[Himavanth Reddy]

Hello Nordic Team,

I’m looking to build on a BLE Scanner(Beacon functionality) + Peripheral features on my application using the nRF52810 device, but I’m facing difficulties when adapting the central examples from the SDK. I would really appreciate some guidance or pointers to the right direction.

Environment setup/Details:

• Target Device: nRF52810

• SDK Version: nRF5_SDK_14.2.0_17b948a

• SoftDevice Version: S132 v5.1.0

• Development Environment: IAR Embedded Workbench 9.21

• Board Type: CUSTOM_BOARD

I have tried with nRF5_SDK_14.2.0_17b948a\examples\ble_peripheral\ble_app_uart example and it is working fine on nrf52810 device(with S132 v5.1.0) after following this blog post S132 v5.1.0 on nrf52810.

Problem details:

• I’m trying to build a central example on nRF52810 I am having a problems with porting nRF5_SDK_14.2.0_17b948a\examples\ble_central\ble_app_uart_c(PAC10040)

• When compiling for the PCA10040e target with S132, I run into issues (build errors and/or runtime faults depending on configuration).

• I suspect this may be related to SoftDevice memory configuration (RAM start/size) or FPU (VFP register arguments) being enabled in the project settings.

• Since most examples in the SDK are originally for nRF52832, I’m unsure about the exact steps required to make them work reliably on nRF52810.

Questions:

1. What are the required project settings (compiler/linker/FPU/RAM) to correctly run a central example on nRF52810 with S132 v5.1.0?

2. Are there any known limitations or modifications needed when porting ble_app_uart_c central examples from nRF52832 → nRF52810 (PCA10040e)?

3. Is there a minimal central scanning example recommended for starting with nRF52810, before adding UART forwarding?

4. Are there any updated reference examples or forum threads specifically for nRF52810 central + UART applications?

Any advice, links to DevZone discussions, or example projects would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance!

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

What are the required project settings (compiler/linker/FPU/RAM) to correctly run a central example on nRF52810 with S132 v5.1.0?

I woudl like to backtrack a bit and understand why you are using nRF5 SDK 14.2 for a new proejct? The blog post you have found should not be understood as a recommendation to use that version, but rather as insructions on how to use an existing SDK version immediately when the nRF52810 was just anounced. I strongly recommend that you use a newer SDK version.

One option is to use the nRF Connect SDK (see nRF Connect SDK and nRF5 SDK statement). If you want to use the nRF5 SDK, you should use SDK 17.1.0 or 17.1.1, which has support for nRF52810 (including the latest revision, which is not the case for older SDK versions). For the continuation of this post I will assume that you are using SDK 17.1.

Are there any known limitations or modifications needed when porting ble_app_uart_c central examples from nRF52832 → nRF52810 (PCA10040e)?

As this project does not suport nRF52810 in the SDK directly (like most other examples), you will have to adjust the include path and definitions to match file device you are using (so when going from nRF52832 search for nRF52832 and replace with nRF52810 where you see it pop up). The same would be the case if you were chanigng SoftDevice type. And lastly, you need to adjust the linker confiugration for the flash and RAM size. See also this thread and see the official documentation for Developing for nRF52810 in the nRF5 SDK.

• Is there a minimal central scanning example recommended for starting with nRF52810, before adding UART forwarding?

• Are there any updated reference examples or forum threads specifically for nRF52810 central + UART applications?

It may exist in the forum , but I did not find any and I am not aware of any nRF52810 example specifically. However, most examples (simple or complex) can work with the chagnes described in the documentation linked above.