nrf52840 dongle and pc-ble-driver

[gtorres]

Hi,

I'm trying to use the python bindings for pc-ble-driver with an NRF52840 dongle and I'm having trouble flashing the connectivity FW. I've used the bindings with an NRF51 dongle using nrfjprog and it works fine, but the new dongles don't have a programmer built in and use a serial interface instead.

I've tried using the DFU serial method to package the connectivity hex as an application but it doesn't seem to run correctly and I have to manually reset the dongle. I've also tried using nrf connect to flash the device but it does not allow flashing for hex files that write over more than one region. I split the hex file into two regions (soft device and application) and I can flash but the device still doesn't work.

I'm using connectivity_2.0.1_115k2_with_s132_5.0.hex

Is the dongle supported? If so, how do I configure it to use pc-ble-driver and be compatible with the python bindings?

Thanks,

Gabe

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Hi,

Unfortunately, pc-ble-driver-py does not support the nRF52840 Dongle yet. If you follow the submodule link in the GitHub repo to pc-ble-driver, you can see that this is still on an old version with softdevice v3.0 API. The dongle is currently supported by nRF Connect for Desktop. Support in pc-ble-driver-py will be added in the future.

Best regards,
Jørgen

[gtorres]

Jorgen, 

I see that the submodule on pc-ble-driver-py has been updated to support 2.3.2. Does this mean that the nrf52 dongle is now supported?

[gtorres]

Looks like I was on .3. its working now. Thanks! Let me know if you guys are planning on support python3 anytime soon.

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Good to hear! We are looking into adding support for Python 3, but I do not have any schedule for when this will become available.

[Rocky]

I was able to get things working using these instructions on the nRF52840 Dongle.  However, I found that the dongle becomes unstable if I reset my script without disconnecting and closing the driver using adapter.driver.ble_gap_disconnect() and adapter.driver.close().  The only way to recover is to unplug/plug the dongle or reset using the nRF Connect Programmer.

This same code works fine using a nRF52 DK, but seems to have shutdown/startup issues using the nRF52840 Dongle.  Any thoughts on how to fix so that the Dongle can work (without resetting) if the script doesn't disconnect and close nicely?

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Please post your issue in a new question. We will help you solve it there.

[Farhang]

I programmed PCA10059 via "Programmer" tool with the exact image you mentioned above, issued reset, then I run 

python heart_rate_collector.py NRF52

in the examples, and it cannot find the COM port.

What could be possibly wrong? 
I can see the device in Windows device manager under "Ports (COM&LPT)" as "nRF Connect USB CDC ACM (COM 38)"

I can also use the device in the nRF Connect windows application v2.6.2 using COM 38, connect to it as a BLE central and scan for other devices.

So why is pc-ble-driver-py not detecting it?

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

What do you mean by "it cannot find the COM port"? You need to specify the COM port in the application, if you see the COM port in Windows, it should also be possible to use with pc-ble-driver-py. Do you get any error codes? Please also post your issue in a new question, to avoid filling this one with different issues that users have.