customize board with nRF52840 needed to communicate via PC bluetooth

[Zero.cool]

Hi All,

I am working on customized board using nRF52840 chip, I have a application which was developed using nRF development kit that communicates to my customize board.

But Right now I am not able to use the development kit and I have pc and my customized board.

So using PC's bluetooth is there any application there from nordic so that I can communicate to my board.

On board I have several peripheral I need to check.

so is it possible ?

[cbd]

I don't think that there is, you may be better off using a smartphone app.

[Zero.cool]

Thank you for replay.

Yes I have installed the app and I am able to connect to board.
But I have code to test on board using specific commands from PC.
actually,

on customize board to test leds, I have app from pc that talks via uard to dev. board. and dev. board was talking to customized board.

Now, dev. board is not there, And can you tell me How Do I test via mobile app.?

suppose, via dev. board I was sending a command (hex commands like 0x01 -> to turn led on).

from mobile app how do I do that?

can you have any idea?

on mobile I found one 'nrf uart 2.0' app, but I am not able to get how do i send commands?

Thanks,

[Bjørn Kvaale]

You can send commands via nRF Connect for iOS or Android. Take a look at the ble app blinky testing documentation for more info. If you still have the dev kit available, I would flash the ble app blinky example from sdk 15 & test that example.

The nrf uart app is outdated, so I would not recommend using that.

Another option you have is to use a dongle (such as the new 52840 dongle) as an interface device between the pc & your 52840 custom device. You can then use nRF Connect for PC BLE application to connect to the custom board & write to a characteristic. I have tested with the new dongle using the newest version of nRF Connect & was easily able to write to the characteristic to turn an LED on or off. I used a nRF52 dev kit with the ble_app_blinky peripheral application from sdk 15 to test with.

 

[Zero.cool]

Thank you very much for detailed answer.,

But unfortunately I don't have dev kit with me, and I need to bring up the board with same chip set.

I can also order the dongle you suggested in parallel, And It may take 2 weeks to process from my company side. AlsoI can exclude the testing of RF range as of now, I have went through the examples. So mean while to test board I have took the UART pins(i.e UART 3) and connected to PC.

What I am thinking is to test peripherals via uart. So could point me for any examples where I can send data from UART and see the response back to PC.

That I can modified according to my board design connection to test peripherals, (I.e I2C and SPI).

Thanks,

[Zero.cool]

Also I have one more query,
Is it possible to use 52840 dongle and on dongle I flash my code ( meant for 52840-dev kit, only as communication bridge between my pc and customized board). and use it?

Thanks,

[Bjørn Kvaale]

Take a look at the uart example from sdk 15. If you want to experiment with BLE UART, you can take a look at this example.

The dongle is not meant to be used as a development kit. It is a better idea to develop on a dev kit. There are a few examples in sdk 15 (just search for pca10059 under the examples folder). nRF Connect for PC will automatically program the chip using it's own connectivity firmware & be able to connect to other dev kits over ble uart for example.

[Zero.cool]

Thanks for example,

But When I try to compile code via keil ( IDE I am using, with arm or GCC compiler selection).The example throws many errors, (i have tried with uart example folders, are, pca10040,pca 10040e, pca 10056) and doesn't compile.

I understood about dongle, and will not flash anything and will use by nrf go studio. :-)

Thanks,

[Bjørn Kvaale]

What error codes are you receiving when you compile via Keil? 

[Zero.cool]

*** Using Compiler 'V5.06 update 6 (build 750)', folder: 'C:\NEW_KeilV5_Pre\Keil_v5\ARM\ARMCC\Bin'
Build target 'nrf52832_xxaa'
compiling system_nrf52.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\system_nrf52.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling main.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\main.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
assembling arm_startup_nrf52.s...
compiling boards.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\components\boards\boards.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling nrfx_prs.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\drivers\src\prs\nrfx_prs.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling nrf_drv_uart.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\integration\nrfx\legacy\nrf_drv_uart.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling nrfx_uart.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\drivers\src\nrfx_uart.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling nrfx_uarte.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\drivers\src\nrfx_uarte.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling app_error.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\components\libraries\util\app_error.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling app_error_handler_keil.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\components\libraries\util\app_error_handler_keil.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling app_error_weak.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\components\libraries\util\app_error_weak.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling app_fifo.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\components\libraries\fifo\app_fifo.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling app_uart_fifo.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\components\libraries\uart\app_uart_fifo.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling app_util_platform.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\components\libraries\util\app_util_platform.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling nrf_strerror.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\components\libraries\strerror\nrf_strerror.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling nrf_assert.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */
..\..\..\..\..\..\components\libraries\util\nrf_assert.c: 0 warnings, 1 error
compiling retarget.c...
..\..\..\..\..\..\modules\nrfx\mdk\nrf52.h(146): error:  #5: cannot open source input file "core_cm4.h": No such file or directory
  #include "core_cm4.h"                               /*!< Cortex-M4 processor and core peripherals                              */

This errors I am getting while compiling using arm compiler updated version 5.

Thanks

[awneil]

You haven't set your Include Paths correctly.

[Zero.cool]

Hi,

I have set the include paths well also added to compiler list.
This errors comes when I select ARM compiler option in Keil.

Below are the errors occurs while selecting GCC ARM compiler.

Build target 'nrf52832_xxaa'
compiling system_nrf52.c...
*** Error: Failed to execute 'arm-none-eabi-gcc'
compiling main.c...
*** Error: Failed to execute 'arm-none-eabi-gcc'
assembling arm_startup_nrf52.s...
*** Error: Failed to execute 'arm-none-eabi-as'
compiling boards.c...
*** Error: Failed to execute 'arm-none-eabi-gcc'
linking...
--- Error: failed to execute 'arm-none-eabi-gcc'

At first , I have also thought of include path errors, Also included other includes,

But still error persists. I have brought up error because I wanted to know If I am missing

any steps while compiling so That I am facing errors.

Thanks

[Bjørn Kvaale]

I just use the default compiler in Keil under the Target tab:

Have you taken a look at this link? Which path have you unzipped your sdk 15 version to? Mine is quite close to the C drive:

C:\NordicSemi\SDKs\nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_a53641a

If you have a really long path to the sdk 15 folder, this could lead to compile issues like you have noticed.