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nRF52840 custom PCB Radio not working

Hi

I was using the MESH SDK 5.0.0 Dimming Server Example on nRF52840 DK and Dongle it worked fine so i designed a custom Board according the Designrules of Nordic.

Setting:

PCB is a 4 Layer 1.6mm, both Cristal where mounted (same Types as on the DK Board)

(Backside)

Antenna is an Inverted F Type 

Antenna path

Programmig and powerdelivery is made over the nRF52840dk OS: Win10 with nrf Connect Toolchain 

Faliture:

Device is not transmitting any Bluetooth beacons, App Timer is Running as expected.

RTT is printing no Error ->similar to DK (with different UUID).

Outputs react as expected.

I had checked the following Points:

- Erased the Chip with nrfjprog --recover --Family NRF52 --Log

- HFXTAL on Register 0x4000040C is 00010001 -> 32Mhz Cristal is Up and Working

- LFXTAL on Register 0x40000418 is 00010001 ->32Khz Cristal is Up and Working

- Powersupply external 3.3VDC -> No change

- I tried the same Steps on a second (similar) Board with the same behaviour.

Question:

What could i investigating to resolve the issue.

  • Hi Jonathan

    The Source of the error was obvinious visible, but we didn't see them.

    The HFXTAL Load Capacitors should be mounted beween GND and X1/GND X2. So the Crystal was without load, seems to oscillate but as far i can say not very reliable.

    After bugfixing the C-Load 2x12pF the Register look the same but then i the Device showed imediatly up an had a stable connetion to the Mobilephone.

    So this case could be closed. Thank you for the quick response and the well based tecnical help from your side.

    Kind Regards

    Simon

  • Great to see that you found the problem. I should have seen it earlier but clearly I was blind. 

    Having the crystal not loaded does explain the results you got, so you are correct indeed.



    But I do have some comments on the layout, so is suggest that you create a new private ticket and ask for a HW review. 



    From the image you shared here in this post there are quite some traces that are not routed to anywhere it seems. 


    But great that the issue is found so that you can now address it. 

    Regards,
    Jonathan

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