NRF52840 and Installing SoftDevice SS340-SD-v6.1.1 ANT / BLE 5

[RMall]

I'm stuck with trying to install Nordic/ANT+ SoftDevice SS340-SD-v6.1.1 on the Adafruit Itsy Bitsy NRF52840.

Within nRF Connect - Programmer, I am getting the following error: "Unsupported device. The detected device could not be recognized as neither JLink device nor Nordic USB device."

Please help. Thanks.

[RMall]

Thanks Amanda!

I've been able to order the very popular and often sold out J-Link mini edu. I am seeing it is compatible with the NRF52/Cortex M chips. There are SWDIO and SWCLK pads on the bottom of the board, then of course the available VRef/3V and Gnd pins, supposedly those are the only valid and needed connections on the J-Link's 10 pin SWD (the other 6 links, so I'm hoping Dupont terminals and a bit of soldering on the two small board pads will accomplish communication.

The first project is for an indoor spin bike. With a gyro/accelerometer (MPU6050) and a quality ADC (HX711 or ADS1115) connected to a set of strain gauges in a wheatstone bridge circuit on a drivetrain component (crank arm, pedal spindle, chainring, or bottom bracket axle) one can measure cadence (RPM), speed, crank angle (phi), torque (bending/twisting moment, Newtons), and power (watts).  Then sending this data wirelessly to a Garmin Edge head unit or custom made smart phone app. Then after, ultimately make a similar one for outdoor, rugged mountain bike use. Maybe also learning to condense all of this into the smallest form fitting PCB/battery package later. This will provide much more fulfillment, customization, and learning than buying a commercial unit.

Since the predominance of Garmin fitness products communicate using the ANT protocol, I was wanting to start there first. I have more investigation with understanding the latest updates with BLE and ANT+ (Smart, 5, mesh, network topology, concurrent connections, connection integrity, packet loss, transmission rate, range/power/gain, crypto, etc.). So with the latest and greatest S340 SoftDevice I should have plenty to 'chew' and can go in any direction with learning.

Thanks for your help in getting me through this update hurdle.

[Amanda Hsieh]

Hi, 

Happy to help. Don't hesitate to create a new support case if you have any issues with the development. We are always on Devzone with you.

-Amanda

[RMall]

I was able to install the S340 SoftDevice with nRF Connect-Programmer and the J-Link, however the board was no longer recognized in Arduino IDE. Is there a way to keep the ordinating Adafruit NRF52 Itsy Bitsy Express bootloader and just update the S340 SoftDevice?

[Amanda Hsieh]

I would suggest to use nRF Command Line Tools to execute "nrfjprog --program S340_SoftDevice.hex --sectorerase -r" command to program the S340 SoftDevice. The "--sectorerase" will on erase the targeted area instead of all the flash. 

-Amanda

[RMall]

Thanks Amanda,

Can you help me with starting from scratch with the NRF52840 SoC on this board...

I think the first few steps that are necessary is to simply achieve some tests with the S340 SoftDevice

Having the J-Link now, through NRF Connect-Programmer I have erased the memory on the NRF52840 SOC and flashed it with Nordic's MBR/bootloader and the S340 SoftDevice. I have the Segger Embedded Studio IDE installed and would like to run any beginner sketch to test maybe a blinking LED (which is GPIO Pin #3) on the board. Can you help me with this first step in making sure the board accepted the flash update?

Thanks.