How to Develop nRF52832 DK on Segger embedded studio

[christine_dev]

Hi

I have purchased an nRF52832 DK to develop a human fall detection device. I'm a newbie to embedded studio, and nordic products. I just started to understand things on the nRF52 sdk and documentation online. Can someone explain me what BSP means? I came across this when I was checking out the blinky example provided by the sdk.

I don't really understand the definitions of the functions given in the examples. Are those functions from the libraries? How am I supposed to develop something? I'm using an accelerometer LIS331HH, it has both SPI and I2C. I'm planning to use SPI. How am I supposed wirte the code to intergrate the accelerometer with via SPI to this board?

Is there any way I can understand easily? 

FYI I've been going through the examples provided by the sdk and the documentation https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fug_gsg_ses%2FUG%2Fgsg%2Fintro.html so far and I have experience with arduino , msp430 and FPGA. And I'm using segger embedded studio to code.

My final plan is to intergrate the nrf52832 dk code back to the break out board nRF52832 I purchased from sparks fun.

Can someone direct me or help me please, I'm running out of time.

Thank You!

[christine_dev]

Can someone please help!

[haakonsh]

Can someone explain me what BSP means?

 The Board Support Package (BSP) is a library for interfacing buttons and LEDs. It's a bit abstract, so many choose to use the Button handling library and controlling LEDs via the GPIO/TE peripherals instead. 

I don't really understand the definitions of the functions given in the examples. Are those functions from the libraries?

 What functions? We need specifics, function name, line number, file name, and SDK version. 

How am I supposed to develop something?

 By reading the nRF52832 Product Specification and the SDK API Reference, and playing around with the peripheral examples, you need to wait a bit with the BLE portion of your application until you've got a handle on the more basic MCU stuff.

I'm using an accelerometer LIS331HH, it has both SPI and I2C. I'm planning to use SPI. How am I supposed wirte the code to intergrate the accelerometer with via SPI to this board?

 ST will most likely have a generic C driver for the LIS331HH where you will need to write the implementations for the Read/Write functions. These will most likely be the ones found in the SPIM driver API docs.

Is there any way I can understand easily? 

 There are few shortcuts available in embedded designs, it is hard work and perseverance that builds competence.

In your case I suggest you find the LIS331HH driver and try to port it to the nRF52 series. I suggest you start by playing with the SPIM peripheral via it's driver and look at the physical pin outputs with a logical analyzer. This will let you build competence in using the SPIM peripheral without involving the LIS331HH. I suggest you transmit a string or an easily recognizable number on MOSI and see if you can capture it with a logical analyzer. If you can, then you've reached your first milestone.
After you've played enough that you feel confident you implement the Read/Write functions of the LIS331HH driver and try reading the Device ID or Status register. If you can read those registers correctly then you've reached the second important milestone where you have verified that you can communicate with the LIS331HH device. From there on you need to test and verify the correct operation of the LIS331HH driver. That is your third milestone. After that, you can start developing the rest of your application. 

[awneil]

christine_dev said:

I'm a newbie to embedded studio, and nordic products.

Do you have any experience with any other IDE(s),  and any other microcontroller(s).

christine_dev said:

Can someone explain me what BSP means?

"Board Support Package" is a pretty standard term throughout software & firmware development.

The Nordic SDK (Software Development Kit) does rather assume that you are already a competent embedded developer - I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point for learning!

For some general microcontroller beginner's getting started tips, see:

https://www.avrfreaks.net/comment/2079906#comment-2079906 

For getting started with Nordic, see:

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Get-Started 

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/short-range-guides/b/getting-started/posts/introduction-to-bluetooth-low-energy-and-ble-devel