how to modify a custom board after creation

[PingISTL]

Hello, Support

I am new to Nordic and try to follow the tutorial video here https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/nRF-Connect-for-VS-Code/Tutorials

Just created a board and build, but later I need to add a few things to my board - like LED or a button. is there a way I modify the board already created and rebuild? or do I have to create a new one? 

I am using VS and SDK version of v1.9.0.

Regards!

Ping

[PingISTL]

Hi, Priyanka

I followed the guide and copy, paste and modified a board under Zephyr tree to be my Fanstel one, and LEDs and Buttons are now working. This is much easier than create a custom board outside Zephyr tree as the video tutorial  does, but it doesn't have an complete example to run through, so a bit misleading as the later part might be hard.

Now my question is , may I manually copy the custom board I put under Zephyr tree to be somewhere else outside the tree and will it be still recognised by VS Code? I want to leave the Zephyr tree alone.

Regards!

Ping

[Priyanka]

Hi,

I believe this is possible. Did you refer to this video tutorial? It shows how the custom development works in VS Code too.

-Priyanka

[PingISTL]

Thanks for reply, Priyanka

It looks like VS Code is only used as an editor here, not use as IDE etc. like build, create a particular build for a board, and flash etc. 

But I noticed it needs to change the cMakeLists.txt if the board file is outside the tree, - adding an APPEND etc. 

And I am fully use VS code for now, and it requires my own project outside of Zephyr tree, so the west tool won't work there - not sure how to set this? is there a way to let west tool work in my own project folder? - outside the nrf connect installation.

The video I referred is here - https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/nRF-Connect-for-VS-Code/Tutorials, it create board at custom location, the author modified a few LEDs in .dts file, but did not go through other important changes it needs to let the custom LED working, and I found that it only works when I don't need to use any board specific features like LEDs etc. A bit misleading as I spent ages try to do it that way.

Regards!

Ping 

[Priyanka]

Hi,

You can check this link for setting west tool to your project folder. You can also run the file v1.9.0\toolchain\cmd\env.cmd from the command line that you are going to use.

-Priyanka