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Can I only use modules based on revision 3 nRF51822 with nRF51-DK ??

I guess and hope not but I am a little confused by the compatibility matrix.. image description

I would need to use SDK 7 or higher for my nRF51-DK but I would need to use SDK6.1 or lower to work with my revision 2 based nRF51822 modules?

Can I use the nRF-51DK to programm and debug my revision 2 modules?? And only need to switch between SDKs for the DK and the modules?

And what do I miss with only revision 2 of nRF51822? Latest usable SDK6.1?

  • Hi muhkuhns. What SoftDevice you are using? S110, S120 ?

    I do not exactly know what you miss when you use SDK 6.1.

    However, I was told from the Nordic employee that there was a bug in device manager when you use SDK 6.1.

    Also I tried SDK 7.2 and SoftDevice S110 7.1 on the revision 2 chip.

    I used HID keyboard service and NUS and it did worked.

  • Hi. In addition to Mangos comment: This document describes what's new in the third revision and hence what you "miss out on" using revision 2. In the release notes bundled with the various softdevices you will also find a chapter on new functionality for that particular Softdevice. We don't recommend using incompatible Softdevices, SDKs and IC revisions. Maybe it works for you and maybe it doesn't. What is sure is that we have not tested it and won't make any guarantees.

    Answer to comments below:

    The SD 8.0.0 is tested and proven to work on rev 2 ICs. The SDK, on the other hand (which is just a set of libraries, drivers and examples), is not tested. Hence you can safely use SD v8, but you can't base your application on SDK v8 and expect it to work. You will have to write your own drivers, libraries and application from scratch, which is a lot of work.

    In other words, the SDK is dependent on the SD, as it uses a lot of the functions in the SD, but the SD is not dependent on the SDK.

    The nRF51 DK can be used with any SD and SDK compatible with revision 3 ICs.

    You can use SDK 6.1.0 and SD 7.1.0 on both IC revision 2 & 3 according to the compatibility matrix. Revision 2 ICs have some issues with the I2C (aka TWI) and UART. Check out the Product Anomaly documents to learn more. To accommodate for these anomalies you should use the latest SDK, SD and IC revision if you can.

  • Thanks for your answer! I already read the documents regarding the changes between the different revisions. As from the combatibility matrix it seems to me: I can use the newest S110 and S120 Softdevices for both, my revision 2 modules and the nRF51-DK.

    But I have to use the SDK v6.1 for my nRF51822 modules and the SDK v8 for my nRF51-DK.

  • Yes, correct on both counts. Just keep in mind that SDK 8 and 7 are not tested on rev 2 IC. So if you choose to use SDK 6.1.0 you should use S110 v7.1.0 or earlier or S120 v1.0.1.

  • As far as I read all the PDFs... (PAN, Series Reference,..) there is a good chance that my applications I am going to write for the nRF51-DK will also work on my revision 2 based modules or are there any general changes I've missed?

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