Unable to upload to custom nRF51 board

RE: Unable to upload to custom nRF51 board

Håkon Alseth — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 08:31:10 GMT

Hi,

Which version of the nRF51822 do you have? There's 3 different one's in terms of flash/RAM. The example is by default setup for the nRF51x22_QFAC device, which has 256 kB flash and 32 kB RAM.

If you have the nRF51822_QFAAxx device, it is a 256 kB flash and 16 kB RAM, thus you need to adjust your settings:

Note: there's also a version QFAB that has 128 kB flash and 16 kB RAM. See this page for more information about this: nRF51822 IC revision overview

When you're able to program, and if the device is still not working, you might have problems with the CLK configuration.

If you do not have a external 32kHz LFCLK, you need to use the internal 32 kHz RC oscillator instead, as described here:

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/23210/sd_softdevice_enable-loop/91289#91289

Best regards,

Håkon

RE: Unable to upload to custom nRF51 board

DMS — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 13:48:05 GMT

>If you have loaded the incorrect softdevice version, or used the one aimed for nRF52832, your application is likely to overlap with the softdevice area.

I am using the softdevice s130 v2.0.0 that comes with SDK11.0, this has worked in the past for all of my uploads

>First, press the "Erase All" button in nRFgo Studio, then be sure you load the s130 v2 (Select "Program SoftDevice" tab in nRFgo Studio), then the application (Select the "Program Application" tab).

I also followed the same steps during the upload process, which results in the error message i posted earlier.

I tried tweaking the IROM settings under target options to deal with potential softdevice overlap.

It was originally-

After referring to this i set it to-

But even this did not fix my issue.

Any other potential solutions to my problem would be appreciated.

Thank you.

RE: Unable to upload to custom nRF51 board

Håkon Alseth — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 11:23:02 GMT

Hi,

[quote user=""]Could it be that my hex file+softdevice exceeds the total flash storage capacity of the board?[/quote]

If you have loaded the incorrect softdevice version, or used the one aimed for nRF52832, your application is likely to overlap with the softdevice area.

First, press the "Erase All" button in nRFgo Studio, then be sure you load the s130 v2 (Select "Program SoftDevice" tab in nRFgo Studio), then the application (Select the "Program Application" tab).

[quote user=""]I found out from my supervisor that the total flash storage of the device was 256KB, but observed that softdevice 130 itself was 298KB, since uploading worked with 298+51KB I'm guessing either some compression occurs or the total flash storage on the custom board is higher than I was told.[/quote]

A .hex file includes overhead compared to a pure binary .bin file. 298kB .hex file will not be equal to a 298 kB binary file.

Best regards,

Håkon