Programming nRF51822 without kits

[David]

Hi, I'm very new to programming microcontroller, so please go easy on me. :(

Firstly, apology if my post sounded weird, this is because English is not my first language. Secondly, I am sorry if these questions sound stupid or perhaps already asked (it's a bit hard to find exact same question as I have right now)

I'm using this chip as a part of my final year project for my bachelor degree. My supervisor agreed to buy me a nRF51822 chip on its own, but refuses to buy evaluation or development kit, as their price are above $100. I will be using J-Link EDU because that is the only affordable programming board I can choose with my current limitation.

I am trying to set up the programming environment to program the chip on my computer (the chip hasn't arrived yet). However, I have no idea where to start, considering that there are red locks in nRF51822 download tab that I can't access.

Anyway, onto the main questions: [b]1. I believe that I need to get nRF51822, programmer board and IDE to program nRF51822, is this right?

2. What do I really need to download from nRF51822 "Download" tab to actually start programming? (I suspect that I only need the SDK stuff, considering that I don't have any kits, but I'm unsure)

3. Does the SDK zip file or installer includes IDE/Studio? (like AVRStudio for ATMEGA chips) 3.1. If it doesn't come with IDE, is there a recommended IDE/Studio I should integrate this SDK with?[/b]

Again, I apologize if this question has been asked before. Also, I am sorry if this post sounded like a lazy person questions. But I am truly confused about where to start + what to do at this point, I wish there was a FAQ or "getting started" page for this.

There was a subject in our uni about programming MCU, but the subject skipped a lot of important details and feels like "just follow the instruction", so that was not very helpful and still left me confused when I have to program the chip on my own.

[Janek Mann]

Sadly Nordic don't permit download and licensing of the SDK without the product key from an EVK or DK. The DK is available for $99 from Mouser though so perhaps that'd be an option for you (I know some supervisors can be very stingy, you may need to be a little persistent)?

The easiest to set up option is the Windows installer for the SDK and uVision 4 IDE from Keil (there is a free version).

[Alex Shepherd]

Well (as you already know) without the Dev or Eval Kit you cannot download the Nordic SDK, so the only other alternative that might get you going with BLE is to look at the RFduino (http://www.rfduino.com/) as it is Arduino-ized version of the Nordic nRF81522 chip.

It has a USB/Serial adapter and bootloader and all the BLE libraries etc are wrapped into the Arduino supplied library etc. I had ordered one last June and it finally arrived a week or two ago and seems to work well out of the box.

Hope that helps

Alex Shepherd

[David]

@Alex: Well, my project needs to work with solar panel and accelerometer, so I doubt that I can use that rfduino without doing something radical to incorporate accelerometer into it, or do I?

(Also, the accelerometer uses SPI to communicate, so I'm not sure if RFDuino can handle it).

It looks very nice though, so thanks for the link!

[Alex Shepherd]

Well how about wiring up a DIP accelerator via SPI using their prototyping board: http://www.rfduino.com/rfd22125-prototyping-shield-accessory-board.html

You should be abel to configure the SPI peripheral to use 4 GPIO pins or maybe 5 to allow for SPI, Chipselect and an interrupt coming back in.

Solar power should be possible with a simple USB LiPo 3.7 V charger PCB from eBay, a 3.7V LiPo battery and a 6V solar cell.

[David]

@Alex: Ah, unfortunately, my accelerometer (ADXL362) is a very small SMD component (around 3mm x 3mm). The reason we chose this chip is because we want to make the smallest, and most power efficient board (since it has to operate using solar panel as sole power source).

I appreciate your answer though, if I were to do this from scratch again as a personal project, I will probably use this chip instead.