Successful Recipes

[jeff]

Hey all:

I have the Dev and Eval Kits and a handful of dongles. In addition to one of the Chinese nRF51822 devices. I have successfully connected via Segger debugger, used Keil V5, open, compiled, erased the device using both the nrfjprog util and Keil, and successfully built and flashed SoftDevices and Program Application segments. Here's where I'm stuck.

I never have I been able to detect (radio active) the 'running' (via Keil) device using tools ie Punch Through Design's LiteBlue. My goal to know that I've assembled, and selected the correct components (Recipe) to make the radio operate.

I've followed the SDKs GettingStarted:setup and read through much if not all of the SDK docs.

It's not clear to me which combination of components (SoftDevices, Program Applications and Program Bootloaders) are needed, version numbers matching required (or not), basically a receipt for getting this device to be functional.

The documentation is quite detailed, but from my perspective, seems to be missing an overarching narrative that would help make sense out of this rather complex combination of silicon and software.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[jeff]

I suspect the crux of my issues are due to trying to use these devices (any of the many nrf51822 instantiations) w/out the nRF6310 mobo and following the step-by-step instructions.

I also suspect, after spending time looking through the DevZone questions, that I'm not alone - meaning there are a number of folks attempting to develop directly to these devices. Each device seems similar, those with this radio, but it's not clear which SoftDevice, Program App, and Boot loader is desired/required.

• Can I or should I use the same SoftDevice on a PCA1000 (dongle) as I would on the PCA10005 module?
• Do I need a boot loader, or is that only if I want to do software updates?
• Does Keil handle the memory mapping for these components, or do I need to understand and manually manage the segments?

I'm sure that many of these questions are answered in the docs, and will appear obvious once understood. But for the novice, there are certainly a lot of pieces to keep straight.

[jeff]

I somehow had a S110 SoftDevice that would load but didn't work correctly, not allowing the demo to work. Starting from scratch, re-downloading all of the various components for the S10001 eval board, I can now see the Heart Rate demo from LightBlue. With this beach head I shold be able to make much faster progress. The questions above are all still valid and I would love to have them answered if possible.

[Stefan Birnir Sverrisson]

Hi

A compatibility matrix for different hardware/software versions is found here for the nRF51822 and here for the nRF51422

You do not need a bootloader to operate the chip, only if you want to be able to update your application/softdevice without physically connecting a programmer.

You can modify ROM and RAM settings in Keil with selecting Options for Target -> Target tab. These settings are specific for each softdevice. You can see settings required by opening any example code in the nRF51 made for a specific softdevice, and look at these settings in those examples.