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Mass storage with nRF51?

I have a project that requires a bluetooth central to be used to gather data from a HRM service, which shouldn't be too much of an issue. However, it also has to store this, and other local sensor data to some sort of storage device (perhaps microSD or Flash memory).

I want to be able to access this data from a PC or other device, but I'm not sure if the nRF51 or nRF52 has the ability to support a file system and act as a USB mass storage device. Would I need to use an additional part to make this possible? If so, what options do I have?

Thanks

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  • you have to use a separate MCU if you want to deal with USB, you just can't do it with the nRF series. I'm a pretty good programmer but even I would balk at trying to bitbang USB :).

    Don't think Nordic makes a dumb central IC, they have the 8001 series but those are peripheral only, they have the nRF24L series but those are generic 2.4GHz and don't have a BLE stack (I think) and they are 8051 processor, they do have USB however (but probably no MSD driver).

    There are other standalone BLE chips, Atmel again, Microchip again, which you just talk to over serial, however I don't know as you save much money using one, even when you have the full BOM to support the nRF chip. I'd move to the nRF52 myself, less components needed on the matching network (ie just 2).

    Or don't use mass storage, get the data off another way, .. serial?

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  • you have to use a separate MCU if you want to deal with USB, you just can't do it with the nRF series. I'm a pretty good programmer but even I would balk at trying to bitbang USB :).

    Don't think Nordic makes a dumb central IC, they have the 8001 series but those are peripheral only, they have the nRF24L series but those are generic 2.4GHz and don't have a BLE stack (I think) and they are 8051 processor, they do have USB however (but probably no MSD driver).

    There are other standalone BLE chips, Atmel again, Microchip again, which you just talk to over serial, however I don't know as you save much money using one, even when you have the full BOM to support the nRF chip. I'd move to the nRF52 myself, less components needed on the matching network (ie just 2).

    Or don't use mass storage, get the data off another way, .. serial?

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