Some Guidance on moving from Arduino to nRF52840

[PhilAJ52]

I have an application that has been built using Arduino boards and shields for prototyping, and software developed using their IDE...all works fine.

The device comprises BLE, Infra Red Input and Output, plus a TFT screen...

I am now looking to move to mass production and the proposed manufacturing company is suggesting the nRF52840 as processor of choice.

My queries are;

a) I am assuming that my onboard software will need to be redeveloped for Nordic libraries etc ...Will the nRF5 SDK and nRF52840 DK give me everything I need to develop the software, including libraries for BLE, display driving (not sure which displayto use yet) ?

OR do I have to use the IAR or SEGGER systems?

b) Are there any libraries available for Infra Red protocol transmission ?

c) A more technical question regarding the actual BLE Chip. On the Arduino - the BLE Device Id could change after reset of the boards - meaning that it couldn't be used to 'tie in' to a user's App. Is the Device Id  within the nRF52840 unique - and available to my software??

Thanks for any help that can be given.

Phil

[butch]

Have you seen https://github.com/sandeepmistry/arduino-nRF5?  It doesn't provide Arduino BLE wrapper.  You didn't say what board you are on now, and I don't know on what boards Arduino provides BLE wrapper, if at all.  Is there is an Arduino BLE library for your board?  Then you might need to port it to NRF52?  I cannot vouch for that link, it probably is a minimal implementation.

In my limited experience (I do just a little Arduino, and much NRF52) there is just a little support for Arduino on the NRF52.  For example, the NRF52DK and its user manual talks briefly about Arduino headers (that you can add to the back of the board.)  And I was just yesterday reading about the Arduino Primo which uses the NRF52, but just went out of support by arduino.org (politics around arduino?)  But I suppose you are asking whether you can abandon Arduino?

b) I don't think "Infra Red protocol" defines a standard.  You would need to give more detail.

c) the device ID is available and unique (not that it is guaranteed unique, just that it is pseudo-randomly generated at the factory and with very high probability is unique.)

[Nguyen Hoan Hoang]

a) The SDK is very complete for BLE.  You app can always reconnect to it.  You need to rewrite your firmware.  It is quite complex.   There is however this library that simplifies the development of BLE firmware with Nordic SDK. 

Free Eclipse GCC is my IDE of choice

b) None that I know off.  

c) You app can always reconnect to it.  No Id change unless it is done on purpose.

[Martin Lesund]

Hi Phil,

(here is a useful thread with useful links)

  a) The SDK should give you almost everything you need to develop your application. We have several libraries, drivers and of course lots of examples which you can use as reference and speed up your development process.

b)  Need more details.

c) Can be found in the FICR

 

[PhilAJ52]

Thank you to all - Butch, Martin and Nguyen

I shall take on the idea of using Eclipse and get the relevant SDks and libraries.

Thanks for info re the BLE Device Id - which we will use as a reference in a back end database.

As for the Infra Red requirement, our application needs to send and receive data over IR.

On the Arduino board we added a small board of our own, with a sender and receiver - which we connected to data pins. We then used a library github here which provided various IR protocols and commands for Encode, Decode, Send and Receive. I was hoping that either a) there would be similar for the Nordic - or maybe b) the library we used could be ported to work on the Nordic. Any further guidance on this greatfully received.

Phil

[Martin Lesund]

Hi Phil,

  I think this thread can help you for your last question. 

Also, I don't see why there should be a problem porting that library.