Cannot program 52840-DK with nrfConnect

RE: Cannot program 52840-DK with nrfConnect

Niramas — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 15:57:26 GMT

I am now working with an FAE and he has determined that the board is bricked. So no need to reply any further. I am working on reflashing from the Segger bootloader now to see if that unbricks it.

RE: Cannot program 52840-DK with nrfConnect

Niramas — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 15:55:44 GMT

The issue isn't which SD I use, it's that I cannot get it to program into the board at all.

No sure why you would think one SD is any "harder". It's BLE with an API, right? I have BLE experience and 30 years of embedded experience so I am just a newbie to Nordics tools.

RE: Cannot program 52840-DK with nrfConnect

Keith Brafford — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 00:11:10 GMT

Also, I just noticed in your screenshot that you are using SoftDevice v7.0.1. This thread makes me think this is not a SoftDevice that a newbie would want to start with:

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/53245/nrf5-sdk-support-for-softdevice-7-0-x

Perhaps you could switch to some demo programs that use SoftDevice 6.1.1 (complements SDK v15.3.0) and make sure all your tools work correctly with that code?

RE: Cannot program 52840-DK with nrfConnect

Keith Brafford — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 00:07:58 GMT

> I have just started with the Nordic tools ...How else would I get S140 onto the board?

I would install nrfjprog (the command line tools) and make sure its bin directory on your path, so you can run nrfjprog from the command prompt:

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Software-and-Tools/Development-Tools/nRF-Command-Line-Tools

once you have that, then you can erase the chip install the SoftDevice one time:

nrfjprog --program sdk\components\softdevice\s140\hex\s140_nrf52_6.1.1_softdevice.hex --verify --chiperase

then you can flash your application code:

nrfjprog --program myfile.hex --sectorerase

If you do it this way you don't need to program the softdevice over and over again. But do keep in mind if you go back and forth trying out different nordic demos, if you load a demonstration program that doesn't use the BLE, you will be erasing the SoftDevice to load that, therefore you WILL need to re-program the softdevice before you run another BLE program.

FYI, if you look at the end part of any of the Makefiles for the "armgcc" builds of the example programs, it shows you how Nordic recommends using nrfjprog to flash the boards.

Also, if you build a development process that uses nrfjprog to program your boards, this part of your process will also be portable to Linux and the Mac.

RE: Cannot program 52840-DK with nrfConnect

Niramas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 22:38:54 GMT

Follow-up: I changed the COM port from 20 to 4, in case the high number was causing difficulty. This had no effect.