Keil PK51 Professional Developer's Kit too expensive

[Mark]

I refuse to pay over $3200 for the Keil PK51 Professional Developer's Kit. I would only be using it with the nRF8001 DK. The C51 Evaluation Software is limited to 2K! I am not sure this is going to work. What are people doing that don't have the Keil toolset?

The nRFgo starter kit is already too expensive but it seems necessary to get something off the ground.

Any suggestions appreciated.

[Bastiaan]

Use nRF51822, toolchain is free and open source!

[Guest]

Use nRF51822, toolchain is free and open source!

[Ole Morten]

We are aware of the problems getting started with the nRF8001 Development Kit, and the need for Keil's PK51 to compile the SDK examples. The SDK does however include precompiled hex files, that can be programmed with nRFgo Studio, so I'd recommend you to try those.

There is also progress ongoing to make it easier to use the nRF8001 with Arduino boards. This eliminates the need for the PK51 toolchain, and should be a good replacement. Please take a look at this forum thread on the Bluetooth forums for details.