nRF51822 and RFDUINO

[roscop13]

Dear SOC developpers,

As many kickstarters i bought an RFDUINO kit, then I made a cool prototype thanks to the easy Arduino compatibility. I'm now thinking of industrializing it. It leads me to some dummy questions :) sorry and thanks in advance for your patience:

-What does it takes to load the RFDUINO bootloader (I'm not sure to use the right term) in a nRF51822 ?

-Is the RFDUINO bootloader available open source?

-Assuming that I now have a nRF51822 with the RFDUINO bootloader, what is the process to upload my aduino sketch in the thousands of nRF51822 chips? Could it be done by NordicSemi or compnies can do that customization work?

Thanks for your help,

[roscop13]

Philip, thanks for your prompt answer!

I'm in the process of making my budget for the dev + manufacturing of the first batch. I think that I will have to go with a nRF51822 and a consultant to make development in C. It also involves making a new PCB design.

Let say that I have my arduino RFDUINO sketch ready (about 200 lines of code). I imagine that the consultant will produce some sort of hex file for the nRF51822. Then how should I load it on the my mass of nRF51822?

Also if anyone is interested about this porting work, and is ready to give a rought estimation for my budget please contact me in private messages.

Thanks,

[Philip Freidin]

The easiest/cheapest way to load the nRF51822 chips in boards you get manufactured is to use the J-Link Lite that comes as part of the Development kit http://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/Bluetooth-R-low-energy/nRF51822-Development-Kit

You should probably also get the Evaluation Kit http://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/Bluetooth-R-low-energy/nRF51822-Evaluation-Kit to prototype your design. Both are about $100 each

On the boards you design, you include a connector that matches the J-Link Lite cable. If you plan carefully, you should be able to get the company that does your manufacturing of your boards to also do the programming. This really does require careful planning, and good communications with the manufacturer.

There are other ways to this, the above is just one example.