Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

RE: Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

tesc — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 08:52:53 GMT

Good to hear you found the solution.

RE: Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

Lee — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 08:17:00 GMT

Hi. I agree that the matrix says that it isn't compatible and I questioned this in a support case to Nordic. I did eventually get ble_app_uart working on my PCA10000 by changing RAM Length from 0x5f80 to 0x1f80.

RE: Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

tesc — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 11:38:14 GMT

A am not sure why you would get the pre-built hex file for pca10028 to work on a pca10000 with rev2 nRF51. It is not compatible according to the compatibility matrix.

Did your make commands show any error messages? You can always use nrfjprog to program the hex file directly, rather than through make. nrfjprog -e to erase the flash, then nrfjprog --program <path-to-hex-file> for the SoftDevice and for the application. Will compiling the pca10028 examples and loading them using nrfjprog give the exact same behaviour as when downloading the pre-built hex file?

RE: Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

Lee — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 23:16:00 GMT

Still no success with these slightly modified settings. I've deleted the PCA10028 folder and reinstalled it from the SDK so that it is clean. I guess that it may be a step that I'm missing in order to get it to work with GCC.

RE: Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

AmbystomaLabs — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 22:47:57 GMT

Sorry, just realized I was building the client side instead of the peripheral side. I just built the peripheral version, again without changes and threw it on a pca10000 and my droid is reporting Nordic_UART in nRFtoolbox. The settings were start 0x1b000 size 0x25000, ram start 0x20002080 and size 0x5f80. Again, it was as the project was left in the zip that I downloaded from nordic completely without changes. Just build it for 51422 and it'll work. You might want to flush the project directory and start from fresh.

RE: Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

Lee — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 22:42:12 GMT

I've just tried your settings and that didn't work either.

RE: Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

AmbystomaLabs — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 22:06:23 GMT

I happen to have a PCA10000, so I built it in keil and loaded the 2.0.0.0 S130 softdevice and the application hex that was in the build folder. I assume this is some sort of serial over BLE device. I didn't change anything at all in the project I left all the bsp and processor stuff unchanged. So it thought it was building for 51422 but the board actually has a 51822 on it. Though, if memory serves me well, these two are mostly the same except for packaging and ram/flash options.

Anyway, after loading the files, the red led blinks now and then. I connected to the com port with putty and it says "scan started". So, I think it works.

The target settings in keil are: irom1 start 0x1b000 size 0x25000, iram1 start 0x20001ebo and size 0x6150

RE: Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

Lee — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 21:38:22 GMT

I've tried that also using:

make (to build ble_app_uart)

make flash_softdevice (to program the soft device hex file onto the nrf51822)

make flash (to program the ble_app_uart hex file onto the nrf51822)

I think that my FLASH and RAM settings are not correct and can't find a definitive answer to what they should be for my PCA10000.

The example for the PCA10028 is:

FLASH (rx) : ORIGIN = 0x1b000, LENGTH = 0x25000 RAM (rwx) : ORIGIN = 0x20002080, LENGTH = 0x5f80

I've tried others settings found by searching this forum and others, but am still unsure what the correct FLASH and RAM settings should be.

RE: Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

AmbystomaLabs — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 21:24:37 GMT

I wouldn't bother trying to merge it just load the softdevice s130_nrf51_2.0.0_softdevice.hex separately. Look for it under components/softdevice/s130/hex in the SDK folder. Then if the compiler is set up correctly, the app will build with it's starting address correct for S130 and you can just load it by itself.

RE: Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

Lee — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 21:06:13 GMT

Hi. Thanks for replying.

My development environment is Linux so I'm not able to use Keil or any of the development tools that Nordic offer - hence why I'm using GCC.

You are correct, ble_app_uart_s130_pca10028.hex is the softdevice and ble_app_uart. This is why I have also tried to use mergehex. I suspect that the app section of ble_app_uart_s130_pca10028.hex was compiled and build using Keil. I haven't spent too much time comparing build the .hex files as I'm building using GCC and they will almost certainly be different.

I'm replacing the references to PCA10028 and nrf51422_xxac to PCA10000 and nrf51822_xxaa so that the BSP files use the correct header files for my target. That said, the pre-built hex file is for a PCA10028 (nrf51422_xxac) so doesn't seem to make too much difference.

RE: Can't get ble_app_uart working on nRF51822 with GCC

AmbystomaLabs — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 20:45:52 GMT

I use Keil 5 and the application code for the project builds just fine. By the way, the free version of Keil 5 works fine with these examples. I think the problem is you refer to the ble_app_uart_s130_pca10028.hex as the app, but these are actually images of the entire flash space. So it includes the softdevice and application as one hex. The target in keil should be the 51822 and should be making the 51822_xxx...hex file which is just the app. Then the easiest route is to use nRFgo Studio, erase the whole thing and load only the correct softdevice and separately load the application code on top of it. After that you should be able to use the flash tools in GCC to load only the application code while you debug and code. If you have further problems, you are correct the flash, ram and target processor settings are vitally important. But I wouldn't just start renaming the pre-compile stuff to PCA10000. Nordic makes heavy use of board support headers and c files and you may just complicate things as you try to figure it out.