About disabling ESB and setting addresses with NRF51822

[Nicolas]

Hello!

I am working with a NRF51822 and I need to change the address of pipes regularly (so I can use more than 8 NRF communicating together with ESB protocol).

My problem is the following : to make the function nrf_esb_set_address_prefix_byte work, I need to stop ESB via the function nrf_esb_disable() and wait for the nrf_esb_disabled() to be called. Unfortunately, this takes a lot of time : up to 62ms in my tests. This is not acceptable for my need. Changing addresses isn't so long with NRF24. Is there a solution to change addresses more quickly with NRF51822?

Thanks.

PS: I posted the same question here.

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi,

1. Could you post the chip markings of your device? Should be something like: N51822 QFAACA 1313AA

2. Are you using the esb_sd_resources_arm/gcc or the "plain" esb_arm/gcc library?

Best regards Håkon

[Nicolas]

1. The chip markings are N51822 QFAAG0 1342AA.

2. I'm using the "plain" esb_arm library. (But I've just tried with esb_sd_resources_arm and the problem remains the same)

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi,

1. Is this a consistent behavior at your end, Ie: is the disable-time variable?
2. Could you post your ESB settings?
3. If you're mid-transmit, and disable the ESB library will wait until the payload you're transmitting or receiving is finished. Are you in PRX mode or PTX mode when this happens?

Best regards Håkon

[Nicolas]

1. The disable-time is variable, from 5ms to 60ms

2. Here are my ESB settings:

nrf_esb_init(NRF_ESB_MODE_PRX);
	
if(!nrf_esb_set_enabled_prx_pipes(0x3F)) error(0);
	
if(!nrf_esb_set_channel(rf_ch)) error(0);

if(!nrf_esb_set_crc_length(NRF_ESB_CRC_LENGTH_2_BYTE)) error(0);
if(!nrf_esb_set_max_number_of_tx_attempts(8)) error(0);
if(!nrf_esb_set_retransmit_delay(750)) error(0);
	
nrf_esb_enable_dyn_ack();
	
nrf_esb_enable();

3. When this happens, I am in PRX mode and no other NRF is using ESB on the same channel.

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi Nicolas,

With your configuration, I'm seeing a delay from 0.14 (nominal) to 0.6 ms when disabling/update config/enabling. Here's my test while-loop:

        nrf_gpio_pin_set(0);
        nrf_esb_disable();
        while(nrf_esb_is_enabled());
        if (nrf_esb_set_channel(cnt & 0x3f))
            nrf_gpio_pin_clear(0);          
        nrf_esb_enable(); 
        while(!nrf_esb_is_enabled());

Could you post your project so I can debug it at my end?

Best regards Håkon