Thingy:91 nRF52840 board controller software.

RE: Thingy:91 nRF52840 board controller software.

Håkon Alseth — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 15:38:42 GMT

[quote user="niemjuha"]

I have already made a project for nRF9160 DK which I use for demo purpose. It's working great. I just wanted to use the Thingy:91 because of the board size. Basically it's enough for me to just initialize the sensor over the I2C. After that I need to have two GPIO lines between nrf52840 and nRF9160, just signal some states detected by the sensor. I have now added my sensor and I2C driver to the project. I'm also trying to trace the nRF52840 but not getting any prints out (USB UART)?

Are there any free GPIO lines between the nRF52840 => nRF9160 that I could use? If not then I will use the DK board.

[/quote]

You can reuse the CTS and RTS lines (IF2+3 and IF6+7), as they're not used by the nRF52 or the nRF9160, but they are however configured as input and output by the UART driver, so I'd recommend setting the CTS and RTS like this in your overlay file:

&uartX {
status = "ok";
rts-pin = <0xFFFFFFFF>;
cts-pin = <0xFFFFFFFF>;
};

Other GPIOs are also discussed in this specific reply:

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/51355/inputs-via-gpio-on-the-thingy-91/214080#214080

Kind regards,

Håkon

RE: Thingy:91 nRF52840 board controller software.

Juha — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 14:00:40 GMT

Trace was configured for RTT.

RE: Thingy:91 nRF52840 board controller software.

Juha — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 10:47:09 GMT

Are there any free GPIO lines between the nRF52840 => nRF9160 that I could use? If not then I will use the DK board.

Best Regards

Juha

RE: Thingy:91 nRF52840 board controller software.

Håkon Alseth — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 14:51:03 GMT

It does sound like you're going into the wrong direction here.

In order to connect a peripheral and get the communication to the nRF91 using your proposed method, it'll have to go through 2 transport layers and adding handling on 2 MCUs (I2C -> NRF52 -> UART -> NRF9160). That is not a recommended approach.

I would strongly recommend obtaining a nRF9160-DK, where you can access the nRF9160 GPIOs directly.

Kind regards

Håkon

RE: Thingy:91 nRF52840 board controller software.

Juha — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 09:06:02 GMT

Building and flashing the “Usb Uart Bridge” is working. I'm now adding my sensor driver to the project. Driver is using the I2C, how do I add I2C support for the nrf52840_pca20035 board? My driver code is not loaded to the project because it’s depending I2C driver.

RE: Thingy:91 nRF52840 board controller software.

Juha — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 13:38:40 GMT

Thanks for the fast reply. I have already made some custom project for the nRF9160 for some demo purpose. I wanted to make same kind of project for Thingy:91 because of the board size. I will check the example. Thanks.

Best Regards

Juha

RE: Thingy:91 nRF52840 board controller software.

Håkon Alseth — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 13:01:57 GMT

Hi,

[quote user=""]I would like to add some custom sensor for Thingy:91 board. I notice that there are no GPIOs available to connect sensor to nRF9160 SiP? So do I need to connect the custom sensor to nRF52840 ? connector P6?[/quote]

Almost all GPIOs are in use, seen from the nRF9160's view, so if you plan to do specific development and require external GPIOs, I'd recommend that you use the nRF91-DK.

There's a couple of test points (with unused GPIOs) you can hook onto as described in this thread, but that can be mechanically unstable:

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/51355/inputs-via-gpio-on-the-thingy-91

[quote user=""]If that is the case, can I find the current nRF52840 board controller source code somewhere? Or is there any template code that I could use?[/quote]

The nRF52840 in the thingy:91 (named nrf52840_pca20035) has no direct function as a board controller, but it does this in the nRF91-DK.

52840's job in thingy:91 is to be a USB-UART bridge for debugging purposes, and firmware upgrading. This is the project for the firmware that is currently running on the nrf52840_pca20035:

https://github.com/NordicPlayground/fw-nrfconnect-nrf/tree/master/samples/usb/usb_uart_bridge

Kind regards,

Håkon