NRF52 Dev kit debugger damaged

[electronic_artist_]

hi ,

i just realized that i damaged my NRF52 dev kit debugger chip. it is heating up and not working . the rest of the circuit including NRF52832 are fine. is there any way by which i can replace the debugger chip and flash its factory bootloader and application on to and revive the board instead of throwing it into waste?

[RK]

I was going to say a definite no but then I looked at the circuit diagram again. The chip is relatively cheap, it's an ATSAM3U2CA, if you have the right tools and skills (at least a hot air gun and a proper soldering iron) you could replace it, it's an LQFP which is a lot easier to solder than a QFP would be. Then you need to get the firmware onto it, that's probably where it gets difficult. You can get the OB firmware from the support site however that's really designed to be uploaded via the bootloader via drag and drop on the USB MSC device. The JTAG interface to the Atmel is broken out into something which looks to me like a tagconnect connector, so probably with a bit of work and a lot of reading the manual and again the right tools you could perhaps get the OB software into the right place. However I suspect that doesn't contain a bootloader and it probably won't run without one and you're unlikely to find anywhere to get that from, it's Segger's code licensed to Nordic. 

So you might get close but I don't think you'll manage it. You don't need to toss the board however, just buy another one and keep the one you have, the BLE still works and the new board will be able to program the old one, as long as you haven't caused enough damage that the old board wrecks the JLink on the new one.