pc-ble-driver compatibility

[Frederik]

Hi, I'm currently testing the pc-ble-driver. It seems its only supporting exactly one FW version and I wonder why.

As far as I understand it currently supports v2 (S130) and v3 (S132) serialisation.

So I compiled and flashed the nRF5_SDK_13.1.0_7ca7556\examples\connectivity\ble_connectivity project wich should be S132 - but nRFConnect complains about wrong version.

I looked into the code of nRFConnect but it's hard to figure out since the NodeJS code links to the C pc-ble-driver and i can't see what's going on.

So how can it be changed? Shouldn't it be compatible since its the same API level?

regards

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Hi Frederik,

It is not entirely correct that pc-ble-driver only support one FW version. In the current stable version, two APIs and softdevices are supported:

• SoftDevice s130 API version 2: s130_nrf51_2.x.x (nRF51 and nRF52 series ICs)
• SoftDevice s132 API version 3: s132_nrf52_3.x.x (only for nRF52 series ICs)

Support for multiple APIs were added in November 2016, to allow backwards compatibility with nRF51 devices, where the final s130 softdevice version (2.0.1) is based on s130 softdevice specifications (SDS) v2.0 API, while nRF52 series support would move on to s132 SDS v3.x API.

From this compatibility matrix, you can see that SDK v13.1.0 only support s132 v4.0.x, which is based on s132 SDS v4.x API. Development of adding support for s132 v5.0 API (supported by SDK 14.0.0) can be tracked in the feature/s132v5 branch on GitHub.

Also note that the connectivity firmware is a modified version of the serialization firmware found in the SDK. You need to apply the patch found in the pc-ble-driver GitHub repository for everything to work as expected.

Best regards,

Jørgen

[Frederik]

Ok, somehow I overlooked the S132 v4 part in the compatibility matrix.

Ok so what I did now is:

• download SDK 12.1
• apply patch [had to add space (" ") in each empty folder to apply without errors]
• setup toolchain (nRF5_SDK_12.1.0_0d23e2a\components\toolchain\gcc\Makefile.windows)
• nRF5_SDK_12.1.0_0d23e2a\examples\ble_central_and_peripheral\ble_connectivity\pca10040\ser_s132_hci\armgcc\ => make

-> ERROR: Makefile:225: Cannot find include folder: ../../../config

So I removed "$(PROJ_DIR)/config " from makefile [there is actualy no directory "config" in the SDK]

=> builds without erros

1. Flashed *.hex on nrf52 DK
2. run nRFconnect => asks for new firmware
3. run pc-ble-driver\examples\heart_rate_collector => sd_rpc_open(m_adapter, status_handler, ble_evt_dispatch, log_handler) returns 0x0d => Timeout [had that before if baud rate is wrong but I double checked - baurate is set to 115200 and in FW it is set by patch]

So what's wrong?

[Frederik]

ok after mergehex pc-le-driver heartrate example is working

but how to stop nrfConnect from complaining?

[Frederik]

maybe to answer myself:

I had to edit firmwareAction.js to remove firmware checks