Alternative PC connection other than USB

[valient2]

Let me first apologies as I am a real novice with these types of items.

But your help in my issue will be greatly appreciated.

We are currently using nRF51 USB dongles within our manufacturing environment on PC’s which run windows 7.

Our product that we build, needs to communicate to the dongles to test their Bluetooth transmission operates, but we find after a few days of non-use on the PC, we lose connection to the dongles, even though I can still see Jlink CDC UART Port’ within device manager, they just don’t work.

The only way to resolve this problem is to restart the computers.

Is there a way I can use the same nRF51 hardware but use an alternative way of connecting directly to the PC’s motherboard i.e. PCI, PCI-E etc?

My belief is a USB connection is never as robust a link when compared to a hard connection to the motherboard.

If you disagree with me and believe I could have simply set the dongles up incorrectly, then I am more than happy to listen to the experts.

[MartinBL]

Hi,

This is unfortunately a known issue with the dongles. You can try to use nRF51-DKs instead of dongles or to reset the dongles with JLink emulator. 

[valient2]

Hi Martin

Many thanks for the prompt response,

Couple question then.

1) Is this disconnection issue down to the USB dongle itself or more to do with how MS Windows interacts with it?

2) Would you say that using the nRF51-DK would stop or reduce this issue from happening?

[MartinBL]

1) It is probably a design flaw in the dongle. We don't know exactly what happens, but the dongles tend to become very hot, and there seems to be a correlation between that and reports like yours. The nRF51 DK don't have this heat issue.

2) No guarantees I'm afraid, but the DKs are less prone to heat issues so it could be worth a shot. 

3) Alternatively you can try this dongle. EDIT: Sorry, forgot the link https://www.adafruit.com/product/2269. 

[valient2]

Sorry, I cant see the answer to 3).

Which alternate dongle are you suggesting?

[valient2]

Many thanks Martin, you have been very helpful and a real credit to Nordic.