ble uart app example

[seanmesh]

Greetings,

I can get the ble uart example to work on my PCA10056 using the example hex file, but when compiling the project on the SDK 15.0 S140 it doesn't work. Specifically, the device does not publish and the LED doesn't blink, any advice?

Kind regards.

[MartinBL]

Hi,

It seems to work fine on my kits. I have tested on PCA10056 v0.8.2 and v0.9.0. Have you remembered to program the S140 v6.0.0 in addition to your application? When you use the pre-compiled hex file it includes both the softdevice and the application. If you compile using e.g. Keil, you will need to program the S140 separately. 

[seanmesh]

Thanks Martin, that was it, I assumed the softdevice is included in the project.

Best,

Shalmon

[MartinBL]

Happy to help. Glad it worked.

[seanmesh]

Quick question, is there a reference document of how it all compiles together? After all i'm loading two different hex files (sdk application) on to the nordic ble device, is the sdk includes a bootloader or something? 

Thanks,

Shalmon

[MartinBL]

I don't think there is actually, but I can give you a quick explanation.

There are a couple of important reasons for why we chose to deliver our BLE stacks as pre-compiled binary hex files:

1. So that you don't have to compile 100-150 kB of extra code every time you make changes in your application. 
2. So that there are no link time dependencies between your application and the BLE stack.
3. Since the stack is completely independent of your application, Nordic can qualify the stack for you. If there were dependencies, you would be responsible for qualifying the stack everytime you make the slightest change to your application. By doing it our way, you can concentrate on your application and not worry about spending time and money on qualification. 

Note that you only have to load the Softdevice once. After that it should be enough to only load your application (unless you erase the entire flash in your device). 

Here is an overview showing how the stack and application are placed in flash: Memory resource map and usage.

If you need a bootloader, that would actually require a third hex file. But once again, it only needs to be loaded once.