External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

Droidik — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 11:54:13 GMT

Thank everyone for solving it. This bugged me for a whole day and the only change I did was update the Zephyr version. This should be mentioned in the docs, because the default behavior has changed between Zephyr versions.

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

Jared — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 11:41:25 GMT

Nice,

I'm happy that it worked for you!

regards

Jared

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

ZacMid007 — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 23:27:50 GMT

Changing those 2 parameters worked! Thanks for your help :)

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

Jared — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 14:21:49 GMT

Hi,

This is the memory layout from building blinky for my nRF52840 devkit:

Which is similar to the last one you've shared.

[quote user="ZacMid007"]

his is the blinky build file (zephyr.hex) for the xiao_ble

[/quote]

Looks like the application expects something else to be flashed at the beginning of flash. Looking at the dts file of the board, it looks like the board expects the softdevice from nRF5SDK to be flashed:

It seems to me that this board was originally made for the nRF5SDK. Can you clarify whether this is correct with the creators of the board?

Also, you can try to build and flash the application to the board without

CONFIG_BUILD_OUTPUT_UF2=y

CONFIG_USE_DT_CODE_PARTITION=y

Which are defined in the board config.

regards

Jared

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

ZacMid007 — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 21:03:24 GMT

I had a look using the nRF Programmer, and the two build files for the boards appear very different; this is the blinky build file (zephyr.hex) for the xiao_ble

Whereas this is the blinky zephyr.hex file for the dev kit, which runs successfully on said dev kit:

I have also made a post on the Seeed forum about this

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

Jared — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 07:33:36 GMT

Hi,

I think it would better if you contacted the creators behind this board as it's a third-party board. From the Nordic side, I can't say that I see any signs of error since the programming verifies that it was successfully flashed.

regards

Jared

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

ZacMid007 — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 20:37:45 GMT

No, the initial blinking was only from the Arduino sketch/flash before attempting to use nRF Connect. After flashing from nRFC, I am unable to further program using Arduino and the previously working program appears to be erased.

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

Jared — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 11:17:08 GMT

Hi,

The log from the programming doesn't really output any errors so it seems like everything is fine from the programming perspective. What is actually happening on the custom board is difficult to say as I don't have any experience with it.

[quote user="ZacMid007"]and when I first checked the device using Arduino in the initial test, it blinked fine when powered from the expansion board/connected as shown.[/quote]

Can you elaborate on this? Have you been able to flash the board with the blinky example before and see that the LEDs on the board starts blinking? Are you still able to repeat this result?

regards

Jared?

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

ZacMid007 — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 23:53:41 GMT

Yes, I can confirm that I am not flashing the development kit IC; disconnecting VDD/VTG and GND Detect, and flashing the blink example (after building for the correct board), I saw the dev kit start blinking; I recovered the device (it stopped blinking), reconnected VDD/VTG and GND Detect, flashed again and this time it did not blink. When attempting to program the XIAO board I ensure that the correct build for the board is selected.

None of the LED pins on the XIAO board are accessible to probe, unfortunately, but I am confident that the correct GPIO port/pin is being referenced in the code after cross-checking all respective documents, and when I first checked the device using Arduino in the initial test, it blinked fine when powered from the expansion board/connected as shown.

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

Jared — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 08:55:05 GMT

Hi,

Could you double check that you aren't flashing the nRF52840 on the development kit instead, is the LED on the development kit blinking after you've flashed the application? The easiest way to check this is to erase the nRF52840 on the development kit before trying to flash the external board. If the nRF52840 on the DK starts blinking, then you know that you're in fact flashing the onboard IC instead of the external board.

Can you measure directly on the pad of the custom board that is assigned to the blinky pin and see if you can measure the blinking signal?

regards
Jared

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

ZacMid007 — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 20:14:23 GMT

Hi Jared,

1. Yes, when attempting to discover the board as a COM port I connect it via its USB-C connector; out of the packet, the board registers as a COM port when connected this way, I guess because of the Arduino bootloader it ships with.

3: Yes, that is what I am using to develop and flash the board; I only used the Arduino IDE to initially verify the board was working.

RE: External nRF52840 board appears to flash but won't do anything

Jared — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 11:18:29 GMT

Hi,

Have you connected the serial interface of the custom board to your computer? Since you expect it to show up as a COM port?
Can you share the log output when you flash the board?
Have you tried using the NCS VS Code extension instead of Arduino IDE?

regards

Jared