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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,

  • 0

    The right place to ask this is probably here: http://forum.rfduino.com/

    From forum.rfduino.com/index.php The module can be bought with bootloader already in it, part number RFD22301

    If you don't want to use the module, and build your own PCB with nRF51822 chips, the following forum.rfduino.com/index.php indicates 2 things:

    1. You can get directly to the nRF51822 chip on the module, but doing so will overwrite the bootloader. You can do this using the Nordic supplied J-Link Lite in the DK kit. This is not a useful development path if you want to continue using the Arduino development tools.

    2. The Bootloader software is not available at this time.

    Looking at your specific questions:

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

    and

    -Is the RFDUINO bootloader available open source?

    Bootloader is not open source at this time.

    what is the process to upload my arduino sketch in to thousands of nRF51822 chips?

    Contact RFDigital, maybe they would like to do this type of manufacturing.

    Your alternative is to migrate your application out of Arduino land, and just do normal nRF51822 development in C, and use normal Nordic supplied software development kit (SDK) and evaluation boards (EK) and development boards (DK) to get you project ready for production in "thousands".

    Need help? consultants are standing by.

  • 0

    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,

  • 0 in reply to roscop13

    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.

  • 0

    Dear Philip,

    How about developing mbed (mbed.org/.../) Mbed says their HDK and SDK is free for commercial use and custom hardware is ok. Do you think it will be a better and more scalable platform to start with for prototyping a to-be-commercial product?

    I own a rfduino however would like to start developing nrf51822 application on a flexible platform. Roscop you may find this useful as well.

    Thanks, AJ

  • 0 in reply to Abhinav Jain

    Hi Abhinav,

    I think this newly available development environment will be very helpful. I have used mbed for another project about 2 years ago, and it was a pleasant experience. Unlike the Keil solution which is the recommended development env for the EK and DK boards which has a code size limit of 32K unless you buy the full license, I don't think mbed has any code size limits. On the other hand, the Keil debugger is excellent. I don't know if mbed has a debugger, it didn't when I last used it.

    Internally, I think mbed uses a GCC compiler, and so does the arduino for ARM environment.

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