Moving from PCA10056 to PCA10059

RE: Moving from PCA10056 to PCA10059

Edvin — Thu, 08 Aug 2019 13:04:23 GMT

If you are new to the nRF Series, I really recommend you to start with the PCA10056, the nRF52840 DK. It will save you a lot of trouble, both because it has a debugger, and because the examples are plug'n'play.

That being said, there are some hints in this ticket. on how to port an example to the dongle. There are also a lot of useful information in this blog post.

[quote user="T Moddy"]Could you help?[/quote]

If you decide to try with the dongle, and not the DK, then you have to give it a go, and then post a question if you have some specific issues.

RE: Moving from PCA10056 to PCA10059

T Moddy — Thu, 08 Aug 2019 12:09:44 GMT

Hi,

I've developed software with PCA10059 (nRF52840 dongle).

Examples are mostly for PCA10056. So i can't upload hex files to my PCA10059. (for example: ble_gatt example)

Can these samples be adapted for PCA10059? Could you help?

RE: Moving from PCA10056 to PCA10059

Edvin — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 08:46:10 GMT

Abhishek: I see that your question is not really related to this question. I suggest we follow up in the ticket that you created:
https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/41486/unable-to-program-nrf52-dongle-through-nrf-connect-app-desktop

BR,

Edvin

RE: Moving from PCA10056 to PCA10059

Edvin — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 08:29:57 GMT

Hello,

Programming the Dongle is a bit more complicated. Did the dongle appear in the drop down menu of nRF Programmer app?

There is a fairly new tutorial regarding dongle programming. It is not straight forward. Check it out:

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/tutorials/b/getting-started/posts/nrf52840-dongle-programming-tutorial

Basically, the dongle doesn't have a programming chip, so it uses the bootloader. You need to set it to bootloader mode, but again, it is all described in the tutorial.

Best regards,

Edvin

RE: Moving from PCA10056 to PCA10059

Abhishek — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 17:07:17 GMT

Hi Edvin,

I want to use the \nRF5_SDK_15.2.0_9412b96\examples\ble_central\ble_app_blinky_c\pca10056 for the nRF dongle (PCA10059).

I tried your suggestion as to change the BOARD_PCA10056 in boards.h file, I could not find the location of

"# define BOARD_PCA10056 "

so I defined

#undef BOARD_PCA10056
#define BOARD_PCA10059

in boards.h

I tried to program the generated hex files through the nRF Connect app on desktop but it did not highlight the "write" option.

How should I move forward ?

Thanks

Abhishek

RE: Moving from PCA10056 to PCA10059

Daniel Reisfeld — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 13:11:38 GMT

Thanks again Edvin

RE: Moving from PCA10056 to PCA10059

Edvin — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 13:08:13 GMT

That is correct. If you look at the DK there is a connector on the short end close to the usb contact, called Debug Out. You need a cable that fits there, called a 10 pin segger cable.

If you connect this cable from the DK to the P1 pin headers (that you need to get and solder on), and power the dongle, it will detect that there is another nRF Connected, and it will program that nRF instead.

If you have several DKs, you can test this quite easily by connecting Debug Out on one DK to Debug In on another DK, power the other DK, and flash a project to the first DK. You will see that it is the DK connected through Debug In that is programmed.

There are quite a few cases regarding this on DevZone, but I am on my way out of the office now, and will not be back until Thursday. You can see if you find some more info in some other cases. Search for something like "program custom board via DK", and I will come back to you on Thursday.

Best regards,

Edvin

RE: Moving from PCA10056 to PCA10059

Daniel Reisfeld — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 12:16:27 GMT

Thanks Edvin,

I do use the softdevice. Just to make sure I understand: I can, therefore, upload programs only using P1 (and not through the usb). Right?

If so, can you kindly direct me to directions to how to do so (preferably using the DK)?

Thanks again,

Daniel

RE: Moving from PCA10056 to PCA10059

Edvin — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 11:59:55 GMT

Hello,

There is a folder in SDK15 called boards, located in:

SDK15.0.0\components\boards

In that folder you should find a file called pca10059.h, which is the dongle board header file.

Note that there are also a couple of projects that are already made for the PCA10059. Not many, but using one of these may save you some time with setup. Although, since it is the same chip as the PCA10056, it might be easier just to change the board header file.

Note that there is a define in the preprocessor defines, called BOARD_PCA10056 in all of the nRF52840 DK projects. If you change this define to BOARD_PCA10056, it should automatically change to use the correct file, pca10059.h.

You will probably notice that if you want to program a project using the softdevice and an application to the nRF52840 dongle, you might run into some issues. Since the dongle doesn't have a programming chip, like the DK has, it is only programmable with the USB bootloader, or with an external programmer. nRF Connect, which uses the USB bootloader currently doesn't support writing to multiple regions. So there is no way of using this tool to program both the softdevice and the application. If your application doesn't use the softdevice, however, then you should be fine.

I have heard that it is possible to use the nrfutil tool to program the nRF52840 dongle. However be very careful not to overwrite the bootloader on the dongle, because if you do, it will not be possible to program it with nRF Programmer from the nRF Connect tool in the future.

You can also program the dongle using an external programmer (such as the DK), but you would have to solder on some programming pins on P1 (on the bottom side of the dongle). Note that by programming it with these pins, if you do a nrfjprog --eraseall or nrfjprog -e, you will also remove the pre-programmed bootloader.

Best regards,

Edvin