Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

RK — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 06:49:48 GMT

I don't know really - all I know is the spec sheet says 3.0v so if you have less than 3.0v that may be your issue. If you measured the batteries with no load it's also possible that when in-use they are less even than that; lithium cells in-use tend to drop another .1v or more.

The DK has 3.3v on a connector somewhere, I've used it, all you should have to do is disconnect the battery and temporarily hook up power from the DK's 3.3v and see if gets the beacon recognised. I'm pretty sure the DK has enough capacity to power the beacon at least for a test especially if the DK itself isn't doing very much.

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

Sarah — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 02:18:06 GMT

I checked the voltage coming from the batteries I have. One is giving me 2.8V and the other is 2.89V. Is that not enough for the DK to recognize that there is an external device on the debug out port?

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

RK — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 05:19:21 GMT

Should be more than 3.0v unless the battery is getting old when it could be marginal. As far as I can see the beacon kit doesn't have a protection diode so you should get the full battery voltage (on some of the other kits you lose 0.7v through the diode making battery power useless for debugging).

For the sake of ruling it out I'd measure it anyway or power the board from 3.3v off the DK. If that doesn't work, start back on the wiring and check it again, I don't have more ideas.

I just took my DK and used it to program an old nrf51822 eval kit, and that was fine and then I plugged it into a TI board I have and it found that with no problem too, and programmed it, so I know that debug out does work on that board.

I doubt by the way that nrfgo studio knows what's connected to the debugger, so it'll probably show 'DK', that may be unrelated to what the segger is actually programming.

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

Sarah — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 03:22:46 GMT

For the beacons, I'm using the 3V energizer lithium battery that comes with the beacon kit, so that should be the voltage on the beacon kit. I tried connecting the beacon kit to nRF51 DK first and then plugging the DK to the computer, but that didn't work either. Any other ideas?

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

RK — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 00:12:42 GMT

What's the voltage on your beacon kit? The JLink-OB on the NRF51-DK needs to see 3v (or more) on the external (Debug Out) VTG before it will sense the board and bypass the DK's nrf51822.

Other things to try, powering up the boards in a different sequence and only opening NRF studio after the boards are all connected. I believe once JLink has connected to a target, it then ignores other targets so you need to get it switched to external mode and connected to your board before the driver starts interrogating it.

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

Sarah — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 21:20:25 GMT

Hi Kristin,

Thanks for your response. I now have nRF51 DK like suggested, and I connected the beacon kit to the DK using the debug port, but nrf go studio still programs the DK instead of the beacon kit. Do you have any idea why? (Beacon kit does not appear on nRF go studio, only the DK does.)

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

Sarah — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 15:56:54 GMT

That's what I thought, but I wanted to be completely sure. Thanks very much!

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

RK — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 15:40:39 GMT

No it's not necessary to purchase the nRF51 DK nor a JLink programmer, you can just use DFU.

That is however a somewhat hard way to do it. If you were going to do it once or twice, don't need to debug anything, ok probably fine, but if you're actually going to develop, put new software on it often, it's much easier to have a proper programmer and debugger. You will save yourself a lot of time.

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

Sarah — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 15:32:58 GMT

Hi Stefan, Is it absolutely necessary to purchase the nRF51 DK or the JLink Programmer? In this link, it looks like you're saying nothing else is needed if we're going to use DFU, but I couldn't be sure. Thanks!

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

Stefan Birnir Sverrisson — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 14:49:15 GMT

For more information, look at this thread, specificallly the update from 27.11.2014. Perhaps this thread might also be useful.

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

FormerMember — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 09:21:11 GMT

The IDE that is being used is Keil. For where to download Keil, and how to install it, please take a look at the user guide for the nRF51-DK, linked to from the thread above. The firmware (source code) for the beacon that comes with the beacon kit can be downloaded from the beacon webpage --> downloads --> software

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

Sarah — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 18:48:43 GMT

I was asking about the IDE and all the tools necessary to create beacon applications. The documentation instructs to use nRF Go studio, but I dont have a board to use that. All I have is the tag with no cables.

RE: Programming nRF51822 smart beacon kit

FormerMember — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 17:47:16 GMT

In order to program the beacon not using DFU, you will need a programmer. I would recommend you to take a look at the thread "How can I program nRF51822-Beacon" .