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Can't program sparkfun breakout

I purchased a sparkfun breakout board (https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/nrf52832-breakout-board-hookup-guide and schematic https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/learn_tutorials/5/4/9/sparkfun-nrf52832-breakout-schematic-v10.pdf).

I tried to hook up to my nRF52 DK for external programming as detailed in the first link (plus connecting breakout 3v3 to DK VDD for power). The power and user LEDs light up on the sparkfun. Using segger embedded studio, it seems that the download to the breakout is successful. I don't then get any RTT output, and don't see any BLE advertisements, and I can't modify the user LED state, so it seems that the program doesn't run.

I also soldered a pin header to the cortex debug connector on the breakout, and connected to the debug out on the DK, plus connecting DK VDD to breakout 3v3 again. This was exactly the same.

Am I doing something wrong? Thanks

  • Hi Nick,

    What SDK version are you running?

    Have you read this?

    Also which Example are you trying out? 

    You speak about ble advertising, have you remembered to flash the softdevice?

    Could you maybe test out the regular Blinky example ?

     

  • Thanks, I hadn't seen that first link. I'll give that a go. I'm using the blinky example (also tried others). Do I need to manually flash the softdevice when using SES projects?

  • Hi Nick,

    You do not need to manually flash the softdevice if you are running SES projects with Softdevices from the SDK. 

  • Ok, it's still not working. I'm using SDK 15.0.0. In the blinky SES solution,

    • in sdk_config.h I disabled NRF_LOG_BACKEND_UART_ENABLED and enabled NRF_LOG_BACKEND_RTT_ENABLED
    • duplicated the project, edited the common configuration to change BOARD_PCA10040 to "CUSTOM_BOARD_INC=sparkfun"
    • copied components/boards/pca10040.h to ../sparkfun.h
    • modified the header (attached)
    • in project common config I changed the user includes to add ../../../../../../../
    • selected the new project as active, then debug

    Builds fine (I confirmed it's picking up the definitions from sparkfun.h), downloads to board, then nothing.

    Target output:

    Preparing target for download
    Executing script TargetInterface.resetAndStop()
    Reset: Halt core after reset via DEMCR.VC_CORERESET.
    Reset: Reset device via AIRCR.SYSRESETREQ.
    Downloading ‘s132_nrf52_6.0.0_softdevice.hex’ to J-Link
    Programming 2.3 KB of addresses 00000000 — 00000967
    Programming 142.5 KB of addresses 00001000 — 00024a23
    J-Link: Flash download: Bank 0 @ 0x00000000: Skipped. Contents already match
    Download successful
    Downloading ‘ble_app_blinky_sparkfun_s132.elf’ to J-Link
    Programming 15.8 KB of addresses 00026000 — 00029f5b
    Programming 0.0 KB of addresses 00029f5c — 00029f8f
    Programming 3.2 KB of .rodata addresses 00029f90 — 0002acbb
    Programming 0.0 KB of addresses 0002acbc — 0002acfb
    J-Link: Flash download: Bank 0 @ 0x00000000: 1 range affected (12288 bytes)
    J-Link: Flash download: Total time needed: 0.511s (Prepare: 0.090s, Compare: 0.077s, Erase: 0.042s, Program: 0.240s, Verify: 0.001s, Restore: 0.060s)
    Download successful

    sparkfun.h

  • Hi, I'm struggling with this and really need help – any ideas?

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