How to change the Thread COAP examples to work with the NRF 52840 Dongle

[David Jones]

Hi, I am wanting to try out the COAP examples in the thread and zigbee 2.0 SDK on the NRF52840 Dongle. However, I am failing to to get it working. The original makefile would create a hex file that refused to be flashed to the dongle via the programmer app. I then thought to change the linker script of the makefile to /openthread_nrf82840_boodloader.ld. This fixed the issue of the hex file not being able to get flashed to the dongle but then the dongle would become unrecognisable to the PC.

What do I need to change so that the Thread COAP examples will work with the NRF52840 dongle?

Thanks.

[awneil]

Any particular reason for doing this on a dongle - rather than the Dev Kit?

See: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/40150/nrf52840-dongle/155876#155876 and linked threads ...

[Vidar Berg]

I think the dongles can be useful for creating larger mesh network without having to buy a lot of development kits, but they are not particularly good for active development. The links @awneil provided gives a good summary of what the limitations are. 

Most of the examples can be run on the dongle as long as they're built with the openthread_nrf82840_boodloader.ld file, but the PC will not recognize the dongle unless the application enables the USB interface. 

[David Jones]

Thanks, how would I go about enabling the USB interface to run the example on the dongle?

[Vidar Berg]

Is it the USB CLI you want to enable? The COAP examples supports CLI, but only over UART, so they need to be modified to support USB. You may diff the cli\uart project against cli\usb_bootloader to see the changes needed to enable USB in your project.