How to use nRF5 SDK to program bare nRF52832, not development board?

[buchnich]

Hello,

I am starting development on what should be a straightforward application using the nRF52832. It is actually this BLE module, which contains the nRF52832. However, starting to develop on the device has been a bit of a pain. I am having trouble using Segger Embedded Studio because it won't detect my J-Link Mini programmer. Instead, I started looking into development on the Keil uVision application. 

The problem that I'm having is that it seems like all of the examples are meant to be used with the Nordic development boards, and not the plain board. I know they have board definitions in a header file, but a plain nRF52832 is not included. Is the only way to flash a program to my module is by me defining a custom board type and then flashing it?

Thank you

[Nguyen Hoan Hoang]

A jtag is require to program it.  You can use JLink or IDAP-Link to flash it.  SES only work with genuine Segger JLink only.  From their website, there is no JLink mini.    

[buchnich]

Ok, then I'll have to use the uVision application instead to program it. My main question still stands.

[Nguyen Hoan Hoang]

They work the same there is no required board definitions.  The different with bare module is that no I/O are being use so you can use any.  Some pins map are defined in boards folder of the sdk.  You can define the pins you are using based on that.  One thing to be aware of is whether the module has the 32768 Hz crystal and the DC/DC builtin are not.  All SDK examples use them. If you module does not have it, you'll need to change the code to use internal RC and not activating the DC or you can add them on your PCB.

[buchnich]

Thank you. Do you know which of the files need to be modified in order to configure the pinout as well as the crystal and DC/DC? There are just so many things in the SDK that I'm having a hard time determining what is critical to the project and what is unused.

[Nguyen Hoan Hoang]

Look for sdk_config.h it usually defined in there. It's an extremely big file with thousands of useless defines. Do a search in it.  There is one for each project.  

Alternatively you can follow this blog for an easy way to write firmware for the nRF.  http://embeddedsoftdev.blogspot.com/2018/02/