Sparkfun nRF52832 breakout board

[Ivo Kovačević]

Hi,

I bought Sparkfun nrf52832 breakout board and i am having issues with programming a board. 

I downloaded Segger embedded studio and nRFGo Studio for uploading hex files to sparkfun's breakout board.
I also downloaded nRF_SDK_15.

My goal is to make ANT Heart rate receiver. I have Garmin's heart rate strap and now i want to receive heart rate with my sparkfun nrf52832 breakout board and send it with serial communication to my PC and than display it there.
Every example in SDK's example folder doesn't work for my board. I found out that those examples are for Nordic pca 10040 board and that is why it is incompatible with the Sparkfun's board. 
My next step was to change definitions in pca 10040 header file such as led number, led pin numbers, push buttons etc. But even i done that changes, blinky example still doesn't work. 

Can you please tell me how to use SDK's examples to program Sparkfun nrf52832 breakout board?
I also read https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/nrf52832-breakout-board-hookup-guide guide and it is so easy to program it like Arduino board but there is only example for led blink and BLE communication but not for ANT.  That's why i want learn to program it with nRF SDK examples and SEGGER Embedded studio + nRFGO studio.

Best wishes,
Ivo 

[AmbystomaLabs]

As Nguyen said, try a different board. I feel bad saying that about a Sparkfun product they seem to have a good reputation.

The problem with the Sparkfun board is that it doesn't have a dedicated programmer IC. They preprogram it with a serial bootloader and you will erase that thing and brick it in a heartbeat.

With a lot of difficulty you can probably come with an open source SWD to USB adapter using a cheap FTDI transceiver and some open source code. Perhaps Sparkfun makes such a beast.

But if you spend about $39 you can get an official Nordic DK which has a built in USB interfaced programmer (ie, Segger) and is impossible to brick. Plus it supports all the Nordic software.

So to clarify, your board support UART programming via a custom bootloader.  Without digging into it, I don't know if Sparkfun's UART bootloader is compatible with any of the Nordic serial DFU or similar apps. And even if you figure out how to get the Nordic examples to load onto the board you will be forced to keep the bootloader in flash space and never erase it or the device will be bricked until you figure out an SWD programming solution.

Let us know what you end up doing.  It looks interesting.

[awneil]

A bit late but, for future reference:

AmbystomaLabs said:

figure out an SWD programming solution

is actually easy!

The Sparkfun board has a footprint on it for a standard 10-pin Cortex Debug Header.

With that in place, you can program & debug with a J-Link - including the onboard J-Link on a Nordic DK - or any other suitable SWD debug probe.

See:

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/47187/sparkfun-nrf52832-breakout-board-programming-without-nrf52-dk-through-serial-beefy-3-bootloader-and-arduino-ide-for-2-4-ghz-radio-communication-to-nrf24l01/186590#186590