Sending the .msbl file in to the Nordic Microcontroller

[umrsraj]

Hello all,

We  are using Segger Embedded Studio (SES) v5.20 ,SDK v17.0.2  ,NRF52840DK board

The issue we are facing is we have a .msbl (kind of binary file)(file size 180KB) from the company called Maxim integrated, and this file is the firmware file we need to upload this file to  Maxim IC(MAX32664D)

so the problem is, we have this file in our laptop and we need to take this file into our nordic microcontroller (NRF52810) so that i can place this file in a flash memory ic after that in to the MAX32664D IC

how we can send this file and access individual bytes of this file.

Best Regards,

Raj.

[awneil]

umrsraj said:

from the company called Maxim integrated

Don't they offer any examples, app notes, etc ?

www.maximintegrated.com/.../MAX32664.html

Are you intending to send it over BLE, or via UART (USB Virtual COM Port) ?

Over UART, something like X- or Y-MODEM would be the obvious choice:  then you don't need to write any code at all on the host - just use a standard terminal.

www.avrfreaks.net/.../3072236

https://www.avrfreaks.net/comment/3094971#comment-3094971

https://www.avrfreaks.net/comment/3095346#comment-3095346

umrsraj said:

how we can send this file and access individual bytes of this file

Over BLE, you would use the PC's standard BLE and file-handling APIs

For Windows, see: 

docs.microsoft.com/.../

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/

For other hosts, see the appropriate developer documentation.

Host app development is beyond the scope of this forum.

[umrsraj]

Hi awneil,

Thank you very much for the quick reply,

awneil said:

Don't they offer any examples, app notes, etc ?

all their docs are explaining about how we can update their ICs firmware after we have the new firmware in host (i.e., Nordic microcontroller).

in the first place i intended to send the data through BLE to our NRF52840 DK board, so i tested with ble peripheral example and "Serial Bluetooth Terminal(App) from playstore". (im ok that if we send this file from mobile also) and the result is we can only receive 5037 bytes of data

why we cant read full data here??

and i tried to read through uart (libuarte example) and there i can read 255 bytes only since in code i mentioned as rx buf size = 255

but if i increase this buf size then im getting this error

so how i can proceed,  i will prefer BLE transmission only either from mobile or pc(mostly from mobile), if its not possible then we can try with UART.

As this is urgent, I would appreciate a reply as soon as possible.

best regards,

Raj.

[awneil]

umrsraj said:

why we cant read full data here?

You'd need to consult the documentation for this  "Serial Bluetooth Terminal(App) from playstore" - does it actually support binary transfers? does it have limits on the amount of data it sends? etc, etc, ...

umrsraj said:

i can read 255 bytes only since in code i mentioned as rx buf size = 255

Go on - you just need to do multiples "chunks" of 255 bytes

umrsraj said:

As this is urgent, I would appreciate a reply as soon as possible

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#urgent

[umrsraj]

Hi awneil,

awneil said:

Go on - you just need to do multiples "chunks" of 255 bytes

Thank you very much, Finally i got the complete file into our nordic controller,

but it was into nrf52840DK, but my custom board is designed with NRF52810,  and since we don't have PCA10046e folder in the libuarte example i tried to embed libuarte project into blinky example.

that means, 

1. copied complete sdk_config.h 

2. added every file which is added into libuarte project 

3. added files paths in preprocessor.

but i got some error, its not finding APP_TIMER_V2 declaration, i tried to find the defined location in libuarte project but iam not successed.

please help to find the location of definition(please find the project file in zip)

Best Regards,

Raj.

2022.blinky - oximeter test - uart.zip

[awneil]

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/33812/developing-for-nrf52810---the-full-story

[umrsraj]

Hi awneil,

just now i found that these (APP_TIMER_V2, APP_TIMER_V2_RTC1_ENABLED)  are defined in options->common->preprocessor->preprocessor definitions.

now i can implement uart(libuarte) in blinky example(pca10040e) but now i have another problem, to store my bin file data i have declared very large array (filee[180*1000]) and it was fine in the NRF52840, but in NRF52810 im getting .bss and stack errors, since nrf52810 doesn't have that much memory.

note: nrf52810 uarte(libuarte) working fine if we check tx and rx operations using normal test strings.

so can you suggest me any way out please...!

Best Regards,

Raj.

[awneil]

umrsraj said:

nrf52810 doesn't have that much memory

Indeed: that is the whole point of the nRF52810 - it's cheaper because it's smaller.

Did you not consider this when selecting the part?

NRF52840: 1 MB Flash, 256 KB RAM

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Low-power-short-range-wireless/nRF52840

nrf52810: 192 KB Flash, 24 KB RAM

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Low-power-short-range-wireless/nRF52810

So, even if you used the entire Flash space of the nRF52810, you'd barely have room for the whole file.

Do you really need to down load the entire file before starting to program the Maxim chip? 

Can you not download a "chunk", program that "chunk" into the Maxim chip, then download the next "chunk", etc ... ?

[umrsraj]

awneil said:

Did you not consider this when selecting the part?

Yes, actually we didn't think of updating the firmware in the Maxim Chip. thats making things complecated.

awneil said:

Can you not download a "chunk", program that "chunk" into the Maxim chip, then download the next "chunk", etc ... ?

we have flash memory ic  in the design (W25Q64JW (64M-bit) Serial Flash memory), so i will try to store the chunks into it and then when im updating the maxim's firmware then i will read the data.

please suggest me any example to get start with the W25Q64JW (64M-bit) Serial Flash memory..

Best Regards,

Raj.

[awneil]

If you're going to store it in external flash, you might as well just do the whole thing.

The only bit that's specific to nRF52 would be the low-level serial driver (SPI, I2C, whatever) - the rest would be the same as for any microcontroller.

SPI, I2C, etc examples are in the SDK