Development Tools and environment.

[Julian]

I am using the nRF51822 to communicate with a HRM (and nothing else), but I intend to use the power of the ARM to control other sensors and process the received data. I use Keil as my IDE of choice and already own a few JTAG interface pods. Will the evaluation board be sufficient for me to develop my application? I get a little confused between the capabilities of the Eval and Development kits, oh yes, and the nRFgo Studio, which doesn't appear to support the nRF51822 - I installed it and there appears to be options only for the 8001 and 8002 - although there is a link to it from the nRF51822 page. Also, can I download any application software that will help me, particularly in pin allocation for the SPI interface. I need this as I will be building my own radio board using a balun and chip antenna and would like to make it compatible with your various tools in case I need to use them later in the design process.

[Ole Morten]

You can refer to this question for an explanation of the difference between the kits. I guess the primary difference for you is that the Evaluation Kit does not support programming custom boards, so you will need an external J-Link in addition. If you have this from before, the Evaluation Kit should be fine. Note that both kits can run all examples, but most of them will need some pin modifications to be used on the Evaluation Kit, due to the reduced number of LEDs and buttons.

nRFgo Studio can be used to program nRF51822, but there isn't any other functionality for it. To get started, you should take a look at chapter 3 of the User Guide for the kit you use, for instance this for the Evaluation Kit. It walks you through the basic setup steps.