nrf52832 and USB functionality

[LASHCA@PIETERSE]

I have a custom PCB using the nrf52832. when flashing my PCB or connecting to the RTT terminal,  pins SWDCLK, SWDIO, VDD & GND are used.

i would like to know if theres a way of flashing and connecting to the RTT terminal via usb. Currently, my usb port is only used for charging.

Insights and advice would be much appreciated....Thanks. 

[Erick_s]

Hello!

Did you make this PCB? There's definitely a way to do it through USB, just take as an example the nRF52 DK. But as a principle, you should've done this while projecting the board since making this change now can be a bit uncomfortable. That's of course if you didn't connect your USB to these pins before.

[LASHCA@PIETERSE]

• Thanks for the response. I did not design the PCB but I am working with it now and want to make improvements. mainly, I want to be able to flash my pcb by using the USB port.
• If I'm understanding you correctly... I could wire the SWDIO and SWDCLK to the USB port. From there on I could connect my nrf52 DK to the PCB via USB and flash the PCB? 

[Sigurd]

LASHCA@PIETERSE said:

If I'm understanding you correctly... I could wire the SWDIO and SWDCLK to the USB port. From there on I could connect my nrf52 DK to the PCB via USB and flash the PCB? 

 No, you need a programmer/debugger for this. On our development kits we have a on-board programmer(J-Link OB) that we use. See this link.

LASHCA@PIETERSE said:

I want to be able to flash my pcb by using the USB port

 Since you are only using the USB port for charging now, and since this is a nRF52832 (and not a nRF52840/nRF52833/nRF52820 that has on-chip USB support), I think you would need to redesign the PCB to achieve this. In order to flash the chip with fw over a USB port on the PCB, you would need either

• A on-board programmer on the PCB(e.g. J-Link OB)
• A USB-to-UART bridge chip(with a serial bootloader already flashed to the chip)
• nRF52840/nRF52833/nRF52820 that has on-chip USB support(with a USB bootloader already flashed to the chip).