Bluetooth on nRF52 Development Kit

[Rolf]

Hi, I have a Nordic nRF52 Development Kit. The ADC examples work, the LED examples work, and the NFC examples work. However, none of the Bluetooth examples work. The LEDs do not indicate any status activity, i.e. advertising, etc.

Has anyone else had this problem, and does anyone know the solution?

Thank you.

[Ladasky]

Hi Rolf,

I am pretty new to embedded systems, but I will share what I think I understand. Anyone else who knows better, please feel free to correct anything I write. I am asking similar questions in this thread:

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../

The Bluetooth driver is an independent software component, the SoftDevice. You have obviously downloaded the nRF52 SDK. If you forgot the S132 SoftDevice, you can download it here:

www.nordicsemi.com/.../nRF52-Preview-DK

Click the Downloads tab. The S132 SoftDevice link is at the top.

It is possible to compile a Bluetooth application, flash it to your board, and have nothing happen. I have done that myself.

If you actually want the Bluetooth application to work, you must first flash the SoftDevice to the board at the standard memory address, 0x0. Then, you flash your application to another address, 0x1F000. The two programs connect at run time, not at compile time.

If, at a later time, you flash the board with a non-Bluetooth application at 0x0, you will overwrite the SoftDevice. You will have to reinstall it in order to run a Bluetooth app again.

[Rolf]

Thanks, that did it. I just needed to use the Nordic studio to load the hex file for the soft device. Now the Bluetooth works.