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nRF5 action!

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  • NeverDieN NeverDie

    @scalz said in Minimalist SAMD21 TQFP32 Pro Mini:

    Also, when doing very tiny pcb, the gnd plane can be too small regarding the wavelength etc, decreasing even more the antenna efficiency.
    The more tiny, the less range..that's not a problem for a wearable, that you wear, close to your phone.

    As long as it's within range of a gateway, then it's good enough. Fortunately, it's really cheap to make gateways using ESP8266's, so you can have lots of gateways sprinkled around if needed. Of course, that's yet another trade-off, as it's not free, and it's arguably not even desirable either. Still, for tiny antenna's (like maybe for a soil moisture sensor in an indoor flower pot), being inconspicuous may make it worth the price.

    P Offline
    P Offline
    pichaty
    Banned
    wrote on last edited by pichaty
    #1800
    This post is deleted!
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    • scalzS scalz

      @monte said in nRF5 action!:

      @scalz well, that's nice that you know what you want and can get it, but that doesn't mean that's suitable for everybody else. That's good to have a choice, but when you need it done, you better find a way to get it done easier and faster.

      Why so much impatience :) So many things to tinker.. I mean you can get a jlink in 2days if you need it. I ordered mine while I was waiting for stuff coming from China..and in my case, there is no close-door store for geeks.
      Do you mean you would suggest a nrf5 newcomer to diy a BMP for mcu flashing??

      When I got my jlink, I didn't have to flash it to make it working.. I just had to donwload win drivers, install them, and voilà.
      Which proprietary sw do you think you need to learn?? I don't use any special sw for flashing..just regular IDEs like arduino/vs studio, or more advanced like Segger (free) or Keil. For all these IDEs, I just click on a button to upload fw, simple. There is nordic windows apps, or nrfjlink in CLI too.

      I know the power of oss and its flaws, same for commercial, in practice it's not rare to see communities sitting/waiting for updates (not hard to find examples on github), whereas money makes commercial products live.
      No need to debate on this, it's useless debate I think
      The reality is different here, I think you'll find more subscriptions-free resources on internet about Jlink than BMP, and for a reason ;) I agree that you'll find lot of howtos save a few bucks by diy-ing and flashing a BMP..
      everyone acts in one's own interest :)
      Just to sum up my thought, I think for a newcomer it's easier to get started with a Jlink vs diy probe that you need to flash with what, a probe ??

      Below is a screenshot of a running nrf5 test, stability test.. but for example you can see, I don't use any additional uart for debug printing, and fw is just uploaded by a click in IDE.
      0_1571301587440_Capture.PNG

      monteM Offline
      monteM Offline
      monte
      wrote on last edited by
      #1801

      @scalz I'm not trying to dismiss your point, I get it. It just surprises me that you stand against "diy'ing a probe" while still being a part of DIY community which gathered around idea of making things fast and cheap. Why bother with mysensors, if we can buy all the same from Ikea, Xiaomi of Philips, or many other manufacturers, sometimes not even much pricier?
      To sum up what I'm trying to say, and finish this debate. I've spoken about my experience as nrf5 newcomer. And exactly as a newcomer I've found this way being better for me. I don't use Segger, Keil or Windows, nor I am planning to use them in future, and if I will, I would probably be able to afford buying myself a J-link.
      To get "DIY" version of BMP you need either ST-link v2 or any STM32 board, bluepill for example. And to flash one of those you obviously need another ST-link. That's all.
      BMP supports SWO which have it's own specifics compared to RTT, but basically does the same thing.

      NeverDieN 1 Reply Last reply
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      • monteM monte

        @scalz I'm not trying to dismiss your point, I get it. It just surprises me that you stand against "diy'ing a probe" while still being a part of DIY community which gathered around idea of making things fast and cheap. Why bother with mysensors, if we can buy all the same from Ikea, Xiaomi of Philips, or many other manufacturers, sometimes not even much pricier?
        To sum up what I'm trying to say, and finish this debate. I've spoken about my experience as nrf5 newcomer. And exactly as a newcomer I've found this way being better for me. I don't use Segger, Keil or Windows, nor I am planning to use them in future, and if I will, I would probably be able to afford buying myself a J-link.
        To get "DIY" version of BMP you need either ST-link v2 or any STM32 board, bluepill for example. And to flash one of those you obviously need another ST-link. That's all.
        BMP supports SWO which have it's own specifics compared to RTT, but basically does the same thing.

        NeverDieN Offline
        NeverDieN Offline
        NeverDie
        Hero Member
        wrote on last edited by
        #1802

        @monte There's also this alternative:

        https://www.ebay.com/itm/Jeff-Probe-from-Flirc-Open-Source-JTAG/223682528208?hash=item34148483d0:g:VQMAAOSwhixdjR4-

        if you're so inclined.

        monteM 1 Reply Last reply
        2
        • NeverDieN NeverDie

          @monte There's also this alternative:

          https://www.ebay.com/itm/Jeff-Probe-from-Flirc-Open-Source-JTAG/223682528208?hash=item34148483d0:g:VQMAAOSwhixdjR4-

          if you're so inclined.

          monteM Offline
          monteM Offline
          monte
          wrote on last edited by
          #1803

          @neverdie that seems to be for folks who are against STM32 chips :)

          1 Reply Last reply
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          • scalzS Offline
            scalzS Offline
            scalz
            Hardware Contributor
            wrote on last edited by scalz
            #1804

            @monte
            it's not standing against diy'ing etc..really you didn't understand my point, it's just about user friendly and easily repetable getting started for MySensors nrf5 newcomers, for simply flashing their sketch.. even if a diy BMP is certainly a good probe too. and a genuine BMP is more expensive than a jlink mini. Compare both a jlink vs a blank diy probe, and with a stopwatch, you'll see which method is faster and easier for a noob..

            But ok, I won't insist anymore, if you prefer to get me wrong, really don't mind.. I should better let user with not much xp manage all alone so no debate, as this just makes me less active, see you next year :grin:

            Just don't forget future newcomers will read your advices. In the meantime, we'll try to update docs for MySensors nrf5.

            Have fun with your probe

            1 Reply Last reply
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            • Sergio RiusS Offline
              Sergio RiusS Offline
              Sergio Rius
              wrote on last edited by
              #1805

              @scalz C'mon, would you leave the forum with just one hit? :smile:
              In fact I understand your point completely. Open source has become more and more caotic. Internet is atemporal, and often people has the bad habit of not putting the complete date at the top of their "articles" that makes that search engines cannot filter and order properly.
              Everyone has a blog and writes whatever gets out him. The majority of people uses that as a remainder for themselves and... whynot getting reward. So there are zillions of howtos made anyhow. They are not written for helping people.

              If the sources and destination are always one, why there aren't the binaries available and all writeups talk about messing the computer and compiling? I think that's because nowadays people seek praise for having achieved it.

              Scalz point is about economy of time. Because time is money, even if it's spare time, and yes, a paid/proprietary probe becomes cheap, giving the documentation on the internet, today.

              Also the point of view depends in the situation of everyone and its age. Someone at the 5thies feels earlier that it's wasting time, and there comes frustration, and complaining posts, unfortunately :face_with_rolling_eyes:
              Just buy a probe, forget about it until it gets delivered.

              @monte BTW, I was trying to program an stm32 board with a jlink. Not a Jlink. Maybe if there was a way to get an already compiled binary (to avoid all those dependencies errors) and program the jlink with a normal serial ttl...

              monteM 1 Reply Last reply
              1
              • Sergio RiusS Sergio Rius

                @scalz C'mon, would you leave the forum with just one hit? :smile:
                In fact I understand your point completely. Open source has become more and more caotic. Internet is atemporal, and often people has the bad habit of not putting the complete date at the top of their "articles" that makes that search engines cannot filter and order properly.
                Everyone has a blog and writes whatever gets out him. The majority of people uses that as a remainder for themselves and... whynot getting reward. So there are zillions of howtos made anyhow. They are not written for helping people.

                If the sources and destination are always one, why there aren't the binaries available and all writeups talk about messing the computer and compiling? I think that's because nowadays people seek praise for having achieved it.

                Scalz point is about economy of time. Because time is money, even if it's spare time, and yes, a paid/proprietary probe becomes cheap, giving the documentation on the internet, today.

                Also the point of view depends in the situation of everyone and its age. Someone at the 5thies feels earlier that it's wasting time, and there comes frustration, and complaining posts, unfortunately :face_with_rolling_eyes:
                Just buy a probe, forget about it until it gets delivered.

                @monte BTW, I was trying to program an stm32 board with a jlink. Not a Jlink. Maybe if there was a way to get an already compiled binary (to avoid all those dependencies errors) and program the jlink with a normal serial ttl...

                monteM Offline
                monteM Offline
                monte
                wrote on last edited by
                #1806

                @sergio-rius well, I've gotten majority of my computer knowledge and almost everything I know about programming MCU from such blog posts and articles. Some of them where better, some worse, maybe 10% were complete garbage. But anyhow I can't and won't complain. Because no person is obliged to write something that everyone will understand, and not everyone is naturally born teacher, to prepare information in suitable for wide variety of people way. But all of them were people, who thought it will be helpful to share their experience with others, to show them that this can be done, and maybe give at least hints to how to achieve it. I think there is not much use if you just follow steps, written by someone, without any thought process, or trying understand what you are doing. And thus when you try to achieve something that, won't work from the beginning and guide seems to be outdated, or not complete, you teach yourself and this is most precious in thewhole process.
                I don't think it is correct to blame those, who made a guide for that you can't replicate all the steps. Time goes, libraries an packages evolve, and in few moths fully functional guide can become obsolete if you can't make some adaptations.
                Anyway, here is more recent guide, but written with older ubuntu version in mind. You may look at it, if you want: https://buger.dread.cz/category/stm32.html

                1 Reply Last reply
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                • Sergio RiusS Offline
                  Sergio RiusS Offline
                  Sergio Rius
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #1807

                  You know... Great power comes with a great responsibility 😊

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • NeverDieN Offline
                    NeverDieN Offline
                    NeverDie
                    Hero Member
                    wrote on last edited by NeverDie
                    #1808

                    I happened just now to notice that ON Semiconductor has released their own (non-Nordic) version of an integrated Bluetooth + ARM Cortex + antenna with all passives:
                    https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/308/RSL10SIP-D-1511181.pdf

                    What's remarkable is that the entire thing, including the antenna and all the passives (which are built into it) is just 8mm x 6mm in size. As a result, it's very easy for them to make a very small sensor beacon:
                    alt text

                    "The RSL10 SIP features an on−board antenna, RSL10 radio SoC,
                    and all necessary passive components in one package to help minimize
                    overall system size. Already fully qualified to FCC, CE, and other
                    regulatory standards; RSL10 SIP removes the need for additional
                    antenna design considerations or RF certifications."

                    Personally, I don't currently have the skill to solder anything that small, but maybe with the PCBA services that are becoming available.....

                    I post this here merely as an illustration of what's truly possible. I can only guess, but I presume Nordic will probably (?) release something similar in the future. It would be nice not having to rely on module vendors but instead just mount the chip directly.

                    NeverDieN 1 Reply Last reply
                    1
                    • NeverDieN Offline
                      NeverDieN Offline
                      NeverDie
                      Hero Member
                      wrote on last edited by NeverDie
                      #1809

                      By the way, maybe the Black Magic Probe can function as a kind of "universal" JTAG interface? For instance, would it work well o an ESP32 and/or anything else that relies on JTAG for debugging and/or burning firmware? Or would an ST JTAG probe work just as well?

                      Is this right? I'd prefer to consolidate on a single thing rather than having a different JTAG interface device for every different kind of hardware that might need programming/debugging:

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psMqilqlrRQ

                      scalzS 1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • NeverDieN NeverDie

                        By the way, maybe the Black Magic Probe can function as a kind of "universal" JTAG interface? For instance, would it work well o an ESP32 and/or anything else that relies on JTAG for debugging and/or burning firmware? Or would an ST JTAG probe work just as well?

                        Is this right? I'd prefer to consolidate on a single thing rather than having a different JTAG interface device for every different kind of hardware that might need programming/debugging:

                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psMqilqlrRQ

                        scalzS Offline
                        scalzS Offline
                        scalz
                        Hardware Contributor
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #1810

                        @neverdie
                        afaik BMP officially targets ARM mcus, whereas ESP32 is not ARM, it's Tensilica.

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        1
                        • NeverDieN NeverDie

                          I happened just now to notice that ON Semiconductor has released their own (non-Nordic) version of an integrated Bluetooth + ARM Cortex + antenna with all passives:
                          https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/308/RSL10SIP-D-1511181.pdf

                          What's remarkable is that the entire thing, including the antenna and all the passives (which are built into it) is just 8mm x 6mm in size. As a result, it's very easy for them to make a very small sensor beacon:
                          alt text

                          "The RSL10 SIP features an on−board antenna, RSL10 radio SoC,
                          and all necessary passive components in one package to help minimize
                          overall system size. Already fully qualified to FCC, CE, and other
                          regulatory standards; RSL10 SIP removes the need for additional
                          antenna design considerations or RF certifications."

                          Personally, I don't currently have the skill to solder anything that small, but maybe with the PCBA services that are becoming available.....

                          I post this here merely as an illustration of what's truly possible. I can only guess, but I presume Nordic will probably (?) release something similar in the future. It would be nice not having to rely on module vendors but instead just mount the chip directly.

                          NeverDieN Offline
                          NeverDieN Offline
                          NeverDie
                          Hero Member
                          wrote on last edited by NeverDie
                          #1811

                          @neverdie On the other hand, I bet that tiny RSL10 integrated radio+antenna package has very limited range. What I noticed from the various nRF52840 modules that I've tried is that the smaller the module, the worse the radio range. I haven't yet encountered any exceptions to that generalization.

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • W waspie

                            @ncollins

                            throw this somewhere in your code:

                            void reboot() {
                              wdt_disable();
                              wdt_enable(WDTO_15MS);
                              while (1) {}
                            }
                            

                            and then calling the reboot (in the entire loop):

                            void loop() {
                            
                              if (motion_change) {
                                motionDetected=!motionDetected;
                                if (motionDetected) {
                                  send(msg.set("1"));  // motion detected
                                }
                                else {
                                  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN,LOW);  //turn-off LED to signify motion no longer detected
                                  send(msg.set("0"));  // send all-clear to prepare for future detections
                                }    
                                
                                NRF_LPCOMP->EVENTS_CROSS=0;
                                motion_change=false;
                              }
                              else { //must be a scheduled wake-up.  Time to report voltage as a heartbeat.
                                batteryVoltage=((float)hwCPUVoltage())/1000.0;  //take voltage measurement after transmission to hopefully measure lowest voltage that occurs. 
                                send(msg_S_MULTIMETER_V_VOLTAGE.set(batteryVoltage,3));  //send battery voltage with 3 decimal places
                                time = millis();
                                if (time > 14400000 ) {
                                  reboot();
                                }
                              }
                              mySleep(1200000);  //sleep for 20 minutes
                            }```
                            N Offline
                            N Offline
                            ncollins
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #1812

                            @waspie just to follow up, 24hr reboot() is working perfectly. Appreciate the help.

                            W 1 Reply Last reply
                            1
                            • N ncollins

                              @waspie just to follow up, 24hr reboot() is working perfectly. Appreciate the help.

                              W Offline
                              W Offline
                              waspie
                              wrote on last edited by waspie
                              #1813

                              @ncollins good news

                              I wonder if this has anything to do with it?
                              https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/10705/nrf52-watchdog-problem-myboardnrf5

                              N 1 Reply Last reply
                              1
                              • W waspie

                                @ncollins good news

                                I wonder if this has anything to do with it?
                                https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/10705/nrf52-watchdog-problem-myboardnrf5

                                N Offline
                                N Offline
                                ncollins
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #1814

                                @waspie Given that all of my interrupt nodes stopped triggering after 36 hrs (before your reboot workaround), it has to be related. It’s just weird that my nodes would continue to wake up and broadcast battery level.

                                Is the LPCOMP interrupt method dependent on the wdt? Maybe resetting/restarting the wdt every 24hrs would suffice? Or maybe you have to reactivate LPCOMP every 36 hr wdt cycle?

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                1
                                • NeverDieN Offline
                                  NeverDieN Offline
                                  NeverDie
                                  Hero Member
                                  wrote on last edited by NeverDie
                                  #1815

                                  When are we going to see newer nRF52 modules featuring antenna diversity?

                                  Somewhere I still have this prototype module that I purchased a few years ago:

                                  alt text

                                  I got it working and wrote about it at the time, but I haven't seen any more up-to-date modules featuring antenna diversity since then. Definitely nothing featuring an nRF52840, for instance. What gives?

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • Calvin KhungC Offline
                                    Calvin KhungC Offline
                                    Calvin Khung
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #1816

                                    Hello guys. I wished I have found this forum earlier. I'm currently trying to extract/dump a firmware from nRF51. Using OpenOCD and ST-Link V2. I am facing some problems and have posted it on stackexchange and stackoverflow. Here are the posts:

                                    https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/22897/blank-binwalk-and-binvis-io

                                    https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59710114/dumping-nrf51s-firmware

                                    Hopefully someone here could help me. Thanks in advance

                                    NeverDieN 1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • Calvin KhungC Calvin Khung

                                      Hello guys. I wished I have found this forum earlier. I'm currently trying to extract/dump a firmware from nRF51. Using OpenOCD and ST-Link V2. I am facing some problems and have posted it on stackexchange and stackoverflow. Here are the posts:

                                      https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/22897/blank-binwalk-and-binvis-io

                                      https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59710114/dumping-nrf51s-firmware

                                      Hopefully someone here could help me. Thanks in advance

                                      NeverDieN Offline
                                      NeverDieN Offline
                                      NeverDie
                                      Hero Member
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #1817

                                      @Calvin-Khung a black magic probe would allow you to do that.

                                      1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • Calvin KhungC Offline
                                        Calvin KhungC Offline
                                        Calvin Khung
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #1818

                                        @NeverDie What is the difference with a ST-Link? I mean, I've read the features on GitHub but I don't really get the differences though :sweat_smile: Sorry, as stated in both links, I'm still a noob.

                                        1 Reply Last reply
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                                        • Calvin KhungC Offline
                                          Calvin KhungC Offline
                                          Calvin Khung
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #1819

                                          Oh, is the command mass erase the same as dump image? If I mass erase, will the bin file appear in the bin folder?

                                          mr_redM 1 Reply Last reply
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