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nRF5 action!

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  • N ncollins

    @NeverDie I spent the last week really deep diving into NRF BLE & NRF networking capabilities.

    Some things I learned:

    • BLE is a great way for low power communication with a dedicated, physically close parent node
    • BLE alone does not establish a network, just a link to a central/gateway node. Giving the limited range, that means having multiple gateways, and dedicated links (painful, inflexible)
    • That led to the creation of BLE Mesh. I found this article from Integra Sources to be really helpful as they talk through the real world limitations they experienced trying to go to production with it. In summary, BLE Mesh is a "managed flood" which quickly leads to network storms if not optimized
    • Then I found OpenThread
      Screen Shot 2020-12-18 at 9.53.32 PM.png
    • After messing around for few days, I found this guide https://github.com/kyberpunk/openthread which really simplifies getting started. Two docker containers: OpenThread Border Router (sensor network gateway) and MQTT-SN (UDP6 MQTT bridge to MQTT Broker). I was able to setup a network with two NRF52840 dongles + NRF52840 DK, and post messages to my MQTT instance within a couple of hours.

    OpenThread is supported on the the NRF52840, NRF52811, NRF52833, as well as 10-15 chips from other vendors.

    I really like the ability to route via IP and the fact that all of the nodes communicate with common, well known protocols. I like the secure-by-default approach, and the built in tools for administering networks (commissioning new nodes).

    I'm going to keep exploring this route, seems promising....

    NeverDieN Offline
    NeverDieN Offline
    NeverDie
    Hero Member
    wrote on last edited by
    #1861

    @ncollins said in nRF5 action!:

    @NeverDie I spent the last week really deep diving into NRF BLE & NRF networking capabilities.

    Some things I learned:

    • BLE is a great way for low power communication with a dedicated, physically close parent node
    • BLE alone does not establish a network, just a link to a central/gateway node. Giving the limited range, that means having multiple gateways, and dedicated links (painful, inflexible)
    • That led to the creation of BLE Mesh. I found this article from Integra Sources to be really helpful as they talk through the real world limitations they experienced trying to go to production with it. In summary, BLE Mesh is a "managed flood" which quickly leads to network storms if not optimized
    • Then I found OpenThread
      Screen Shot 2020-12-18 at 9.53.32 PM.png
    • After messing around for few days, I found this guide https://github.com/kyberpunk/openthread which really simplifies getting started. Two docker containers: OpenThread Border Router (sensor network gateway) and MQTT-SN (UDP6 MQTT bridge to MQTT Broker). I was able to setup a network with two NRF52840 dongles + NRF52840 DK, and post messages to my MQTT instance within a couple of hours.

    OpenThread is supported on the the NRF52840, NRF52811, NRF52833, as well as 10-15 chips from other vendors.

    I really like the ability to route via IP and the fact that all of the nodes communicate with common, well known protocols. I like the secure-by-default approach, and the built in tools for administering networks (commissioning new nodes).

    I'm going to keep exploring this route, seems promising....

    Very inspiring! I've had high hopes for Thread, and from your report it sounds like maybe now is a good time to jump in.

    1 Reply Last reply
    1
    • NeverDieN NeverDie

      @ncollins said in nRF5 action!:

      Just started testing my new NRF52805 breakout board. I added a new generic variant to sandeepmistry/arduino-nRF5, added a new board to mysensors nRF5, now I'm testing compatibility.

      This new NRF52805 chip is interesting. Way stripped down compared to the rest of the NRF5 line. No PWM, no LPCOMP, only 10 GPIO (maybe 8 usable).

      But, it's cheap, ~$2.50 for the EBYTE BT104-BT5005 module, compact, and appropriate for most low-power use cases.

      Interestingly, the chip does not support the current MySensors default, but deprecated, data rate of 250Kbps. Today I also learned that modules can only communicate on the same data rate. So I created a ESP8266 + NRF24L01+ gateway at MY_RF24_DATARATE RF24_1MBPS, and it worked!

      Still need to test a few things:

      • I2C
      • SPI
      • Power consumption

      If all goes well, I'll submit the merge requests and publish this board schematic on openhardware sometime in the next week.
      IMG_1291.jpg

      Great work! For the gateway you might want to look into Ebyte E01-2G4M27D (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000536940861.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.60da4c4dGywFPS), which should have better receive sensitivity than the usual nrf24L01 because it includes an LNA.

      N Offline
      N Offline
      ncollins
      wrote on last edited by
      #1862

      @NeverDie Thanks, and good call on the Ebyte NRF24 with LNA. I have a few laying around that I've been meaning to incorporate into a generic multi-sensor gateway/repeater node. If they're always connected, might as well collect environment data and maybe motion too.

      1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • N ncollins

        @NeverDie I spent the last week really deep diving into NRF BLE & NRF networking capabilities.

        Some things I learned:

        • BLE is a great way for low power communication with a dedicated, physically close parent node
        • BLE alone does not establish a network, just a link to a central/gateway node. Giving the limited range, that means having multiple gateways, and dedicated links (painful, inflexible)
        • That led to the creation of BLE Mesh. I found this article from Integra Sources to be really helpful as they talk through the real world limitations they experienced trying to go to production with it. In summary, BLE Mesh is a "managed flood" which quickly leads to network storms if not optimized
        • Then I found OpenThread
          Screen Shot 2020-12-18 at 9.53.32 PM.png
        • After messing around for few days, I found this guide https://github.com/kyberpunk/openthread which really simplifies getting started. Two docker containers: OpenThread Border Router (sensor network gateway) and MQTT-SN (UDP6 MQTT bridge to MQTT Broker). I was able to setup a network with two NRF52840 dongles + NRF52840 DK, and post messages to my MQTT instance within a couple of hours.

        OpenThread is supported on the the NRF52840, NRF52811, NRF52833, as well as 10-15 chips from other vendors.

        I really like the ability to route via IP and the fact that all of the nodes communicate with common, well known protocols. I like the secure-by-default approach, and the built in tools for administering networks (commissioning new nodes).

        I'm going to keep exploring this route, seems promising....

        A Offline
        A Offline
        Avamander
        wrote on last edited by Avamander
        #1863

        @ncollins

        There's this nice HAT for the Raspberry Pi you might find interesting :) : https://gitlab.com/electronutlabs-public/indrium-pi-hat

        On another topic, I would honestly like to see MySensors using OpenThread or BLE Mesh transport...

        N 1 Reply Last reply
        1
        • A Avamander

          @ncollins

          There's this nice HAT for the Raspberry Pi you might find interesting :) : https://gitlab.com/electronutlabs-public/indrium-pi-hat

          On another topic, I would honestly like to see MySensors using OpenThread or BLE Mesh transport...

          N Offline
          N Offline
          ncollins
          wrote on last edited by
          #1864

          @Avamander That would make a great gateway. I believe I read a getting started guide by the creator of that Pi Hat, Playing with Thread and MQTT-SN on Nordic nRF52840. The tutorial is a little outdated now, but it's a good overview of the process of setting up a Thread network. There is a lot of good content on that blog.

          I agree, but it is still not clear to me what the appropriate relationship between MySensors and OT / BLE Mesh is. It seems there is a lot of overlap in functionality. While I prefer to focus on the NRF5 series, a majority of the community is using ATMEGA328 and NRF24, or LoRa modules, which wouldn't support OT / BLE.

          At the very least, I'd like to see MySensors tap into some more of the advanced NRF5 capabilities: OTA, NFC.

          There are also a few examples of NRF5 modules running in dual mode: BLE + OT. If it's possible to run 2.4GHz + BLE in parallel, then there is potential to create a MySensors bridge device.

          Or maybe leveraging BLE to configure MySensor nodes at runtime: modifying sleep duration, send frequency.

          Given the abundance of storage and memory on the NRF5 devices, it is also feasible to create something like Tasmota / ESPeasy for MySensors. Use the same firmware on every node, have the MySensors gateway/controller manage and push configuration templates. Given the great work on MySensors NodeManager and the SmartSleep functionality, it seems like the foundation is already in place.

          monteM 1 Reply Last reply
          1
          • N ncollins

            @Avamander That would make a great gateway. I believe I read a getting started guide by the creator of that Pi Hat, Playing with Thread and MQTT-SN on Nordic nRF52840. The tutorial is a little outdated now, but it's a good overview of the process of setting up a Thread network. There is a lot of good content on that blog.

            I agree, but it is still not clear to me what the appropriate relationship between MySensors and OT / BLE Mesh is. It seems there is a lot of overlap in functionality. While I prefer to focus on the NRF5 series, a majority of the community is using ATMEGA328 and NRF24, or LoRa modules, which wouldn't support OT / BLE.

            At the very least, I'd like to see MySensors tap into some more of the advanced NRF5 capabilities: OTA, NFC.

            There are also a few examples of NRF5 modules running in dual mode: BLE + OT. If it's possible to run 2.4GHz + BLE in parallel, then there is potential to create a MySensors bridge device.

            Or maybe leveraging BLE to configure MySensor nodes at runtime: modifying sleep duration, send frequency.

            Given the abundance of storage and memory on the NRF5 devices, it is also feasible to create something like Tasmota / ESPeasy for MySensors. Use the same firmware on every node, have the MySensors gateway/controller manage and push configuration templates. Given the great work on MySensors NodeManager and the SmartSleep functionality, it seems like the foundation is already in place.

            monteM Offline
            monteM Offline
            monte
            wrote on last edited by
            #1865

            I wanted to write that Softdevice and ESB are not compatible for use at the same time, but then decided to fact check myself. Seems like now you can use Softdevice and ESB simultaneously. You can either disable softdevice in program, or use Timeslot API to manage access to radio of different protocols.
            https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fsds_s140%2FSDS%2Fs1xx%2Fconcurrent_multiprotocol_tsl_api%2Ftsl_usage_examples.html&cp=4_5_3_0_8_2
            https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/55847/priority-level-overlap-between-softdevice-and-esb
            https://jimmywongiot.com/2020/06/22/radio-timeslot-api-for-the-multiple-protocols/
            If this is doable I can't think of a reason, why mysensors shouldn't use softdevice.

            acbA 1 Reply Last reply
            3
            • monteM monte

              I wanted to write that Softdevice and ESB are not compatible for use at the same time, but then decided to fact check myself. Seems like now you can use Softdevice and ESB simultaneously. You can either disable softdevice in program, or use Timeslot API to manage access to radio of different protocols.
              https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fsds_s140%2FSDS%2Fs1xx%2Fconcurrent_multiprotocol_tsl_api%2Ftsl_usage_examples.html&cp=4_5_3_0_8_2
              https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/55847/priority-level-overlap-between-softdevice-and-esb
              https://jimmywongiot.com/2020/06/22/radio-timeslot-api-for-the-multiple-protocols/
              If this is doable I can't think of a reason, why mysensors shouldn't use softdevice.

              acbA Offline
              acbA Offline
              acb
              wrote on last edited by
              #1866

              (Been away for a while, but saw this and thought I should chime in...)

              @monte - I can confirm that this is true. I have custom nRF52832 boards with bootloaders and SoftDevices (S132) that are all currently happily running MySensors code too - I needed the bigger memory footprint AND FOTA updates, so...

              As you suggest, you have to disable the SoftDevice before MySensors takes ownership of the radio otherwise there are problems. And depending on how/where you stack things, make sure that @d00616's awesome arduino-NVM layer (pseudo-EEPROM implementation) isn't going to write over anything important. I used Adafruit's FreeRTOS implementation as a starting point, but I'm not sure I fully understand what I've done in the scheduler.

              I've not used the Timeslot API myself, but instead do a sort of hard-switch between the two for configuration, BLE OTA updates, etc. So for example, I have a switch in HA to put any individual node into "DFU OTA via BLE" mode - just like in the Nordic examples - then I can use their app to upload new firmware, update the SoftDevice, etc. and then reboot.

              Hope that made sense.

              Also @NeverDie, on the threads and meshes - I've had good success with Apache MyNewt. Their BLE Mesh implementation (using NimBLE) was relatively straightforward to work with. I made a 5x node test mesh with Publishers and Subscribers, everything provisioned using secure Network and App keys using Nordic's nRF Mesh app. Press a button on one node, all the others do something, etc. At that point, I'm not sure how useful it is to implement the MySensors protocol on top of that, but rather just choose a Publisher to act as a Gateway to your Home Automation software of choice.

              monteM 1 Reply Last reply
              1
              • acbA acb

                (Been away for a while, but saw this and thought I should chime in...)

                @monte - I can confirm that this is true. I have custom nRF52832 boards with bootloaders and SoftDevices (S132) that are all currently happily running MySensors code too - I needed the bigger memory footprint AND FOTA updates, so...

                As you suggest, you have to disable the SoftDevice before MySensors takes ownership of the radio otherwise there are problems. And depending on how/where you stack things, make sure that @d00616's awesome arduino-NVM layer (pseudo-EEPROM implementation) isn't going to write over anything important. I used Adafruit's FreeRTOS implementation as a starting point, but I'm not sure I fully understand what I've done in the scheduler.

                I've not used the Timeslot API myself, but instead do a sort of hard-switch between the two for configuration, BLE OTA updates, etc. So for example, I have a switch in HA to put any individual node into "DFU OTA via BLE" mode - just like in the Nordic examples - then I can use their app to upload new firmware, update the SoftDevice, etc. and then reboot.

                Hope that made sense.

                Also @NeverDie, on the threads and meshes - I've had good success with Apache MyNewt. Their BLE Mesh implementation (using NimBLE) was relatively straightforward to work with. I made a 5x node test mesh with Publishers and Subscribers, everything provisioned using secure Network and App keys using Nordic's nRF Mesh app. Press a button on one node, all the others do something, etc. At that point, I'm not sure how useful it is to implement the MySensors protocol on top of that, but rather just choose a Publisher to act as a Gateway to your Home Automation software of choice.

                monteM Offline
                monteM Offline
                monte
                wrote on last edited by
                #1867

                @acb so you just compile mysensors code with sofdevice chosen in options, and everything works? That's great news!
                Do you mean you use FreeRTOS with mysensors also? So I guess you are using adafruit's bootloader then?

                acbA 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • monteM monte

                  @acb so you just compile mysensors code with sofdevice chosen in options, and everything works? That's great news!
                  Do you mean you use FreeRTOS with mysensors also? So I guess you are using adafruit's bootloader then?

                  acbA Offline
                  acbA Offline
                  acb
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #1868

                  @monte - No, not quite. I'll have to dig back into my local codebase. I use PlatformIO, but I remember having to modify one or more arduino-NVM files to make them compile for Adafruit's nRF52 BSP, something else with how the digital pins were defined (probably minor) elsewhere and of course update MyMainNRF5.cpp to work with their FreeRTOS scheduler. I remember that last part being a bit painful to debug - even with a JLink - but the nodes are pretty solid now.

                  I can do a diff later this evening if you're interested...?

                  Yes, Adafruit went with using an RTOS to manage their SoftDevice interfacing. I suppose there are pros/cons to that, but their support was definitely a pro! The useful part is being able to disable it cleanly (!) and then being able to jump back into it when it's safe to do so. FOTA updates with Nordic's app are always solid.

                  And yes, I've got a custom version of their bootloader running on my boards. Nothing fancy - different pins, buttons, LEDs, etc. I might have modified one or two other bits here and there, but their base should be a good enough starting point.

                  What boards are you using? And how are you programming them?

                  monteM 1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • acbA acb

                    @monte - No, not quite. I'll have to dig back into my local codebase. I use PlatformIO, but I remember having to modify one or more arduino-NVM files to make them compile for Adafruit's nRF52 BSP, something else with how the digital pins were defined (probably minor) elsewhere and of course update MyMainNRF5.cpp to work with their FreeRTOS scheduler. I remember that last part being a bit painful to debug - even with a JLink - but the nodes are pretty solid now.

                    I can do a diff later this evening if you're interested...?

                    Yes, Adafruit went with using an RTOS to manage their SoftDevice interfacing. I suppose there are pros/cons to that, but their support was definitely a pro! The useful part is being able to disable it cleanly (!) and then being able to jump back into it when it's safe to do so. FOTA updates with Nordic's app are always solid.

                    And yes, I've got a custom version of their bootloader running on my boards. Nothing fancy - different pins, buttons, LEDs, etc. I might have modified one or two other bits here and there, but their base should be a good enough starting point.

                    What boards are you using? And how are you programming them?

                    monteM Offline
                    monteM Offline
                    monte
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #1869

                    @acb said in nRF5 action!:

                    I can do a diff later this evening if you're interested...?

                    Yes please, I think I'm not the only one who will appreciate your code :)
                    I have a bunch of 51822's but wanted to get into 52840. I have paused my research of NRF5 for some time, while I am finishing my other work, but I would like to have more complete experience with NRF5 than what is now provided by mysensors.
                    I guess FreeRTOS is a way to go, when you have far mo complex MCU then atmega, and far more capable.
                    I hope that mysensors core team will consider moving forward to more complex, but more powerful architecture.

                    acbA 1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • monteM monte

                      @acb said in nRF5 action!:

                      I can do a diff later this evening if you're interested...?

                      Yes please, I think I'm not the only one who will appreciate your code :)
                      I have a bunch of 51822's but wanted to get into 52840. I have paused my research of NRF5 for some time, while I am finishing my other work, but I would like to have more complete experience with NRF5 than what is now provided by mysensors.
                      I guess FreeRTOS is a way to go, when you have far mo complex MCU then atmega, and far more capable.
                      I hope that mysensors core team will consider moving forward to more complex, but more powerful architecture.

                      acbA Offline
                      acbA Offline
                      acb
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #1870

                      @monte: Okay, sorry for the delay in getting back to you about this (- FWIW: UK went into another national lockdown, schools closed, so it’s been pretty crazy here the last few days...!)

                      I’ve dug back into my original code, done some experimenting and have tried to get down to a minimal set of steps necessary to get MySensors code to play "nicely" with a SoftDevice. Hopefully it’ll be helpful as a starting point. But note that minimal is not optimal - or even the best - see more on that below.

                      Caveats aside...

                      As far as prepping the nRF52832 goes, this HEX file will load the chip with the following MySensors-compatible regions either “in-mind” or in-place:

                      0x00000 to 0x00FFF -   4K MBR Region, currently up to 0xAFF.
                      0x01000 to 0x25FFF - 148K SoftDevice Region, currently with S132 up to 0x2514F.
                      0x26000 to 0x6FFFF - 272K Application Region, bootloader intelligently fills.
                      0x70000 to 0x70FFF -   4K VirtualPage? managed by arduino-NVM.
                      0x74000 to 0x7EFFF -  44K Bootloader Region, currently custom up to 0x78FCB.
                      0x7F000 to 0x7FFFF -   4K “EEPROM” Area? managed by arduino-NVM.
                      

                      It’s best to get the bootloader to load the application code (via an FTDI) since it knows where to put it, otherwise you’re doing it manually with a JLink, etc.

                      The linked bootloader also expects:

                      UART TX on P0.11
                      UART RX on P0.12
                      USR BTN on P0.15
                      BLE DFU on P0.16
                      MCU RST on P0.21
                      

                      Other optional, but useful pins are:

                      LED1 on P0.13
                      LED2 on P0.08
                      

                      Once the above-linked HEX has been flashed (using JLink, BMP, etc.), you can boot the nRF52832 into a state where it is expecting a DFU over UART by grounding USR BTN (P0.15) and resetting (ground P0.21 briefly). LED1 will fade up and down slowly to confirm the new state.

                      Or you could do this over BLE by grounding both USR BTN and BLE DFU (P0.16) and resetting. LED1 and LED2 will fade up and down more quickly to confirm.

                      I’ve found the custom tools in Adafruit’s nRF52 BSP for Arduino to be pretty solid for FTDI uploading, but YMMV. Otherwise, it’s Nordic’s nRF Toolbox app.

                      (Note that if you do go with Adafruit’s BSP, you can call built-in functions in your Sketch code like enterSerialDfu() and enterOTADfu() to perform the same button operations as above.)

                      As far as prepping MySensors goes, these are (I think) the minimum files and modifications needed to make things work. In summary:

                      1. Either comment out the define check for NRF5 right at the bottom of MySensors/drivers/NVM/Flash.h (or define it somewhere) so that the flash driver gets compiled. This is the only file that uses that define, AFAIK.

                      2. If you’re using Adafruit’s nRF52 BSP (recommended), you have to make sure MySensors uses the correct pin assignment array. Quick hack is to just replace line 37 of nrf5_wiring_digital.c (MySensors/hal/architecture/NRF5/drivers) with ulPin = g_ADigitalPinMap[ulPin];

                      3. Finally, you will probably want to play around with the implementation of MySensors and FreeRTOS in this MyMainNRF5.cpp file (replacing the one in MySensors/hal/architecture/NRF5).

                      This last file is where FreeRTOS is being used to create a sort of Arduino-like structure with a loop_task() being added to the scheduler that contains both the usual setup() and loop() functions you’ll probably be familiar with from Arduino IDE land - setup() is run by MySensors inside the _begin() function.

                      Note that this is NOT the best or lowest power way to do this! But it is (possibly) the fastest way to get your existing MySensors sketches up and running.

                      Remember that this is now an RTOS running on the MCU. So ideally, you probably want to completely dispense with system ticks and move to a setup that only uses interrupts, timers, callbacks, etc. to get the lowest possible power, depending on what you’re trying to do in your Sketch. If you want a quick-and-dirty low power hack, just lower the configTICK_RATE_HZ define in FreeRTOSConfig.h (Adafruit nRF52 BSP) to something like 4 (Hz) or so - but that not the “right” way to do it...

                      However, that’s outside the scope of this (now, not-so) little post. If you want to dig deeper, I’d suggest familiarising yourself with FreeRTOS and reading through this low power Github issue with Adafruit’s implementation and the associated links mentioned in it - this page from FreeRTOS on Low Power Tickless Idle Support is good too. Here’s an example of an Arduino Sketch using tasks, timers and interrupts - but using Bluetooth - that illustrates a loop-less implementation.

                      I’ve tinkered down to the 2 or 3 µA region with MySensors using the RTC, portsense interrupts, etc. and you can, of course, go sub-µA using a custom SYSTEM OFF sleep implementation and an external nA region RTC.

                      I can try to put together a better MySensors integration, if folk are interested. It’ll take time though, especially now that we’re locked down for the next month…

                      Anyway, hope that was helpful. Any questions, I’ll do my best to respond with what I know.

                      (P.S. Oh, and you'll need the latest MySensors development branch to get the most stable nRF52832 radio implementation.)

                      Have fun! :)

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      3
                      • monteM Offline
                        monteM Offline
                        monte
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #1871

                        @acb thank you for such complete answer!
                        One more question for now, is this standard, or modified bootloader?
                        And how many additional steps do I need to take to make this work on nrf52840?

                        acbA 1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • monteM monte

                          @acb thank you for such complete answer!
                          One more question for now, is this standard, or modified bootloader?
                          And how many additional steps do I need to take to make this work on nrf52840?

                          acbA Offline
                          acbA Offline
                          acb
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #1872

                          @monte - Glad you found it helpful!

                          The bootloader I linked to is a custom (modified) one to fit the board I'm using. I remember tinkering with things like buffer sizes to make large BLE DFUs more reliable - I'd have to dig back into my notes to be sure...

                          But I believe Adafruit's standard nRF52 Feather should keep approximately the same memory regions - which is the "main" hurdle. I think the only other potential issue for the nRF52832 was their use of a BOOTLOADER_SETTINGS region at 0x7F000, so you'll have to check that it's not in the way of the arduino-NVM sections. On the Adafruit Bootloader side, it's all linker-related, nrf52.ld is the file I think.

                          Or you can, of course, modify arduino-NVM to pick it's sections somewhere else, say, underneath the bootloader, for example. Just be sure to limit how much it erases from there.

                          I remember nRF52840 being trickier because Adafruit had (and used) both the BOOTLOADER_SETTINGS region (this time at 0xFF000) and a BOOTLOADER_CONFIG region (at 0xFE000 - 2K, or something like that...) which they used for USB VID+PID, UF2 family, etc.

                          I've got a similar (custom) Adafruit-based bootloader I made for Nordic's nRF52840 Dongle that works with MySensors, if you're interested?

                          I couldn't get Nordic's default Dongle bootloader to play nicely with MySensors (at the time). They sign their bootloader so you can't replace it through nRF Connect without a JLink/BMP/etc. - you have to wipe the chip completely - which creates another problem. The bootloader also needs to set REGOUT0 in the UICR to 3v so you can see your LEDs and debug the thing without level-shifting (the default is 1.8v). Anyway, it does all work (eventually!) - I've currently got a Dongle serial gateway and Dongle nodes running in various places. Oh, you'll need to up the data rate too, since the 840 doesn't support the MySensors (deprecated) default of 250kbps.

                          Does that help at all?

                          What nRF52840 board(s) do you have?

                          monteM 1 Reply Last reply
                          2
                          • acbA acb

                            @monte - Glad you found it helpful!

                            The bootloader I linked to is a custom (modified) one to fit the board I'm using. I remember tinkering with things like buffer sizes to make large BLE DFUs more reliable - I'd have to dig back into my notes to be sure...

                            But I believe Adafruit's standard nRF52 Feather should keep approximately the same memory regions - which is the "main" hurdle. I think the only other potential issue for the nRF52832 was their use of a BOOTLOADER_SETTINGS region at 0x7F000, so you'll have to check that it's not in the way of the arduino-NVM sections. On the Adafruit Bootloader side, it's all linker-related, nrf52.ld is the file I think.

                            Or you can, of course, modify arduino-NVM to pick it's sections somewhere else, say, underneath the bootloader, for example. Just be sure to limit how much it erases from there.

                            I remember nRF52840 being trickier because Adafruit had (and used) both the BOOTLOADER_SETTINGS region (this time at 0xFF000) and a BOOTLOADER_CONFIG region (at 0xFE000 - 2K, or something like that...) which they used for USB VID+PID, UF2 family, etc.

                            I've got a similar (custom) Adafruit-based bootloader I made for Nordic's nRF52840 Dongle that works with MySensors, if you're interested?

                            I couldn't get Nordic's default Dongle bootloader to play nicely with MySensors (at the time). They sign their bootloader so you can't replace it through nRF Connect without a JLink/BMP/etc. - you have to wipe the chip completely - which creates another problem. The bootloader also needs to set REGOUT0 in the UICR to 3v so you can see your LEDs and debug the thing without level-shifting (the default is 1.8v). Anyway, it does all work (eventually!) - I've currently got a Dongle serial gateway and Dongle nodes running in various places. Oh, you'll need to up the data rate too, since the 840 doesn't support the MySensors (deprecated) default of 250kbps.

                            Does that help at all?

                            What nRF52840 board(s) do you have?

                            monteM Offline
                            monteM Offline
                            monte
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #1873

                            @acb I have a couple of Ebyte's E73 modules. I also have BMP, so it shouldn't be a problem.
                            If you could share your bootloader for 52840 it would be a great start for my tinkering.

                            @acb said in nRF5 action!:

                            I couldn't get Nordic's default Dongle bootloader to play nicely with MySensors (at the time).

                            So have you gotten any success eventually?
                            Once again, thank you for such extensive information :) I hope others will appreciate it too.

                            NeverDieN acbA 2 Replies Last reply
                            0
                            • monteM monte

                              @acb I have a couple of Ebyte's E73 modules. I also have BMP, so it shouldn't be a problem.
                              If you could share your bootloader for 52840 it would be a great start for my tinkering.

                              @acb said in nRF5 action!:

                              I couldn't get Nordic's default Dongle bootloader to play nicely with MySensors (at the time).

                              So have you gotten any success eventually?
                              Once again, thank you for such extensive information :) I hope others will appreciate it too.

                              NeverDieN Offline
                              NeverDieN Offline
                              NeverDie
                              Hero Member
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #1874

                              @monte said in nRF5 action!:

                              I hope others will appreciate it too.

                              Yes! Any examples which shed light on how to write a custom bootloader for the nRF52 would be greatly appreciated.

                              1 Reply Last reply
                              1
                              • orhanyorO Offline
                                orhanyorO Offline
                                orhanyor
                                wrote on last edited by orhanyor
                                #1875

                                I just gave this design to pcb fab and cant wait to test it out. I made and tested a similar board using nrf52840 but soldering aQFN package is a nightmare and i needed to cancel quite abit of pins to increase the success chance.
                                So this design is based on nrf52832with a normal QFN package which is easy to solder and that allowed me to breakout every single pin (except P0.07). Can be powered with a single cell lipo or USB port and managed to fit in a charger for it with a charging indicator led. It has a voltage divider to measure the battery but it can be desoldered if the pin is needed for another function.
                                Comes with PA and LNA just like my nrf52840 test and had to follow quite abit of design recommendations from the datasheet.
                                Some pins are compatible with adafruit 52832 circuit design just in case if i want to use their bootloader. Like reset, DFU, 2 different leds are connected to the same pins as in their board design. Also theres a selector 0 ohm resistor between pcb and external antenna.
                                I will report when i receive and test it!
                                832.JPG

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                1
                                • monteM monte

                                  @acb I have a couple of Ebyte's E73 modules. I also have BMP, so it shouldn't be a problem.
                                  If you could share your bootloader for 52840 it would be a great start for my tinkering.

                                  @acb said in nRF5 action!:

                                  I couldn't get Nordic's default Dongle bootloader to play nicely with MySensors (at the time).

                                  So have you gotten any success eventually?
                                  Once again, thank you for such extensive information :) I hope others will appreciate it too.

                                  acbA Offline
                                  acbA Offline
                                  acb
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #1876

                                  @monte, @NeverDie - Took some time this weekend to take a look at this and used my previous post as something of a template; hope it helps...

                                  Re: Nordic’s default Dongle bootloader - I never managed to get it to play nicely with MySensors and so abandoned it completely in favor of a modified version of Adafruit’s again, since I was already familiar with it from my nRF52832 work. It would have been nice if Nordic had revealed their private key to move/replace their bootloader, but I get it, I figure they’d rather you bought their DK.

                                  This is the custom bootloader (.HEX file) my Nordic nRF52840 Dongle nodes currently use. You’ll need to completely wipe any current Dongle (or EByte E73 module) using a JLink/BMP before flashing. It has the following MySensors-compatible regions either “in-mind” or in-place:

                                  0x00000 to 0x00FFF - 4K MBR Region, currently up to 0xAFF.
                                  0x01000 to 0x25FFF - 148K SoftDevice Region, currently with S140 up to 0x25DE7.
                                  0x26000 to 0xEFFFF - 807K Application Region, bootloader will intelligently fill.
                                  0xF0000 to 0xF0FFF - 4K VirtualPage? managed by arduino-NVM.
                                  0xF4000 to 0xFD7FF - 38K Bootloader Region, currently custom up to 0xFC01F.
                                  0xFD800 to 0xFDFFF - 2K Bootloader Config, currently custom up to 0xFD857, 88B.
                                  0xFF000 to 0xFFFFF - 4K “EEPROM” Area? managed by arduino-NVM.

                                  The linked bootloader will of course expect the same pin connections as the Dongle. The important ones are probably only:

                                  LED1_YLW_GREEN on P0.06
                                  
                                  LED2_RGB_RED   on P0.08
                                  LED2_RGB_GREEN on P1.09
                                  LED2_RGB_BLUE  on P0.12
                                  
                                  USR BTN on P1.06
                                  BLE DFU on P1.10
                                  
                                  MCU RST on P0.21
                                  

                                  The bootloader supports CDC, DFU and UF2 upload modes. So the first time you flash the bootloader and reset, you can then mount it as a removable drive with UF2 support for drag-and-drop uploading of applications and/or new bootloader images, etc.

                                  It should also appear as a usual COM port via it’s CDC descriptors, enabling FTDI-like uploading through PlatformIO/Arduino IDEs. And as before, you can perform DFUs over BLE through a manual combination button-press - more on that below...

                                  Also as before, the bootloader shows the upload state through the LEDs, but note that on the Dongle, the LEDs are all active LOW - i.e. drive a logic zero (‘0’) to illuminate the LED(s). If you’d like a version of the bootloader where the LEDs are all active HIGH, let me know and I’ll try to dig out my old environment and compile something - you can do this yourself though… ;)

                                  Manually entering these upload states is similar to the nRF52832. Uploading via FTDI works as you would expect. Ground P1.06 (USR BTN) and reset (ground P0.21, MCU RST, briefly) and the nRF52840 will expect a DFU over USB either via it’s COM port or UF2 if mounted. On the Dongle, LED1 will fade up and down slowly and I think the RGB LED goes green if mounted.

                                  For DFUs over BLE, ground P1.06 (USR BTN) and P1.10 and reset. I chose P1.10 because it’s right next to a ground pin on the Dongle and I just soldered another push switch to it. LED1 fades up and down more quickly together with the RGB LED turning blue to confirm. Uploading is via Nordic’s nRF Toolbox app and again, if you’re using Adafruit’s BSP you’ll get the built-in enterSerialDfu() and enterOTADfu() sketch functions to perform the same button operations as above.

                                  As far as prepping MySensors goes, the same applies as above with the nRF52832, only this time you’ll need to up the data rate to 1Mbps or higher, as I mentioned earlier.

                                  I could upload Arduino IDE and PlatformIO board variants for the Dongle if you’d like. But it’s straightforward enough to create variants for your specific board. If you’re using the Dongle, probably the most useful thing I have to hand is this code-snippet for enabling the regulator:

                                  // Set REGOUT0 to 3V mode
                                  // https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/short-range-guides/b/getting-started/posts/nrf52840-dongle-programming-tutorial
                                  if ((NRF_UICR->REGOUT0 & UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_Msk) ==
                                      (UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_DEFAULT << UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_Pos))
                                  {
                                      NRF_NVMC->CONFIG = NVMC_CONFIG_WEN_Wen;
                                      while (NRF_NVMC->READY == NVMC_READY_READY_Busy);
                                  
                                      NRF_UICR->REGOUT0 = (NRF_UICR->REGOUT0 & ~((uint32_t)UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_Msk)) |
                                                          (UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_3V0 << UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_Pos);
                                  
                                      NRF_NVMC->CONFIG = NVMC_CONFIG_WEN_Ren;
                                      while (NRF_NVMC->READY == NVMC_READY_READY_Busy);
                                  
                                      // System reset is needed to update UICR registers.
                                      NVIC_SystemReset();
                                  }
                                  

                                  If you stick this in an initVariant function in your variants.cpp, the Adafruit nRF52 BSP will call it as part of main.

                                  I think that's everything - I hope it was helpful - any questions, I’ll do my best to respond a bit faster this time!

                                  Famous last words... ;)

                                  NeverDieN 1 Reply Last reply
                                  2
                                  • acbA acb

                                    @monte, @NeverDie - Took some time this weekend to take a look at this and used my previous post as something of a template; hope it helps...

                                    Re: Nordic’s default Dongle bootloader - I never managed to get it to play nicely with MySensors and so abandoned it completely in favor of a modified version of Adafruit’s again, since I was already familiar with it from my nRF52832 work. It would have been nice if Nordic had revealed their private key to move/replace their bootloader, but I get it, I figure they’d rather you bought their DK.

                                    This is the custom bootloader (.HEX file) my Nordic nRF52840 Dongle nodes currently use. You’ll need to completely wipe any current Dongle (or EByte E73 module) using a JLink/BMP before flashing. It has the following MySensors-compatible regions either “in-mind” or in-place:

                                    0x00000 to 0x00FFF - 4K MBR Region, currently up to 0xAFF.
                                    0x01000 to 0x25FFF - 148K SoftDevice Region, currently with S140 up to 0x25DE7.
                                    0x26000 to 0xEFFFF - 807K Application Region, bootloader will intelligently fill.
                                    0xF0000 to 0xF0FFF - 4K VirtualPage? managed by arduino-NVM.
                                    0xF4000 to 0xFD7FF - 38K Bootloader Region, currently custom up to 0xFC01F.
                                    0xFD800 to 0xFDFFF - 2K Bootloader Config, currently custom up to 0xFD857, 88B.
                                    0xFF000 to 0xFFFFF - 4K “EEPROM” Area? managed by arduino-NVM.

                                    The linked bootloader will of course expect the same pin connections as the Dongle. The important ones are probably only:

                                    LED1_YLW_GREEN on P0.06
                                    
                                    LED2_RGB_RED   on P0.08
                                    LED2_RGB_GREEN on P1.09
                                    LED2_RGB_BLUE  on P0.12
                                    
                                    USR BTN on P1.06
                                    BLE DFU on P1.10
                                    
                                    MCU RST on P0.21
                                    

                                    The bootloader supports CDC, DFU and UF2 upload modes. So the first time you flash the bootloader and reset, you can then mount it as a removable drive with UF2 support for drag-and-drop uploading of applications and/or new bootloader images, etc.

                                    It should also appear as a usual COM port via it’s CDC descriptors, enabling FTDI-like uploading through PlatformIO/Arduino IDEs. And as before, you can perform DFUs over BLE through a manual combination button-press - more on that below...

                                    Also as before, the bootloader shows the upload state through the LEDs, but note that on the Dongle, the LEDs are all active LOW - i.e. drive a logic zero (‘0’) to illuminate the LED(s). If you’d like a version of the bootloader where the LEDs are all active HIGH, let me know and I’ll try to dig out my old environment and compile something - you can do this yourself though… ;)

                                    Manually entering these upload states is similar to the nRF52832. Uploading via FTDI works as you would expect. Ground P1.06 (USR BTN) and reset (ground P0.21, MCU RST, briefly) and the nRF52840 will expect a DFU over USB either via it’s COM port or UF2 if mounted. On the Dongle, LED1 will fade up and down slowly and I think the RGB LED goes green if mounted.

                                    For DFUs over BLE, ground P1.06 (USR BTN) and P1.10 and reset. I chose P1.10 because it’s right next to a ground pin on the Dongle and I just soldered another push switch to it. LED1 fades up and down more quickly together with the RGB LED turning blue to confirm. Uploading is via Nordic’s nRF Toolbox app and again, if you’re using Adafruit’s BSP you’ll get the built-in enterSerialDfu() and enterOTADfu() sketch functions to perform the same button operations as above.

                                    As far as prepping MySensors goes, the same applies as above with the nRF52832, only this time you’ll need to up the data rate to 1Mbps or higher, as I mentioned earlier.

                                    I could upload Arduino IDE and PlatformIO board variants for the Dongle if you’d like. But it’s straightforward enough to create variants for your specific board. If you’re using the Dongle, probably the most useful thing I have to hand is this code-snippet for enabling the regulator:

                                    // Set REGOUT0 to 3V mode
                                    // https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/short-range-guides/b/getting-started/posts/nrf52840-dongle-programming-tutorial
                                    if ((NRF_UICR->REGOUT0 & UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_Msk) ==
                                        (UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_DEFAULT << UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_Pos))
                                    {
                                        NRF_NVMC->CONFIG = NVMC_CONFIG_WEN_Wen;
                                        while (NRF_NVMC->READY == NVMC_READY_READY_Busy);
                                    
                                        NRF_UICR->REGOUT0 = (NRF_UICR->REGOUT0 & ~((uint32_t)UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_Msk)) |
                                                            (UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_3V0 << UICR_REGOUT0_VOUT_Pos);
                                    
                                        NRF_NVMC->CONFIG = NVMC_CONFIG_WEN_Ren;
                                        while (NRF_NVMC->READY == NVMC_READY_READY_Busy);
                                    
                                        // System reset is needed to update UICR registers.
                                        NVIC_SystemReset();
                                    }
                                    

                                    If you stick this in an initVariant function in your variants.cpp, the Adafruit nRF52 BSP will call it as part of main.

                                    I think that's everything - I hope it was helpful - any questions, I’ll do my best to respond a bit faster this time!

                                    Famous last words... ;)

                                    NeverDieN Offline
                                    NeverDieN Offline
                                    NeverDie
                                    Hero Member
                                    wrote on last edited by NeverDie
                                    #1877

                                    @acb Thanks for your post!

                                    My nRF52 skills have gotten a bit rusty, so in case you're no longer around when I circle back to this toopic in the future, I'm going to jump the gun and ask you now so that your answer can be memorialized here and then suitably curated by Hek for years to come: How exactly do you ensure that your bootloader is loaded into the proper bootloader memory segments and not treated like a regular program and stored in ordinary, non-privlidged program memory? I'm guessing it's accomplished through a linker directive of some kind? If you could share even a brief simple example here on how to implant the bootloader code where it needs to be, I'm sure it would be immensely helpful to anyone who wants to create a custom bootloader of their own. ;-)

                                    Actually, it seems you did offer a summary of how to do it when you wrote "Manually entering these upload states is similar to the nRF52832. Uploading via FTDI works as you would expect. Ground P1.06 (USR BTN) and reset (ground P0.21, MCU RST, briefly) and the nRF52840 will expect a DFU over USB either via it’s COM port or UF2 if mounted. On the Dongle, LED1 will fade up and down slowly and I think the RGB LED goes green if mounted.", but again a step-by-step actual example, with demo files, would really drive it home. Now, some people might consider that much detail would constitute a "no thinking required" guide and therefore overkill, but I'd prefer overkill to underkill any day. I'm sure at least some others who are reading this would rather have s complete demo example that's too basic than have to puzzle over a missing or vague step. It may not seem like it's missing or vague to you now, but believe me if you ever have to switch to a different project for a while, it might not look anywhere near as obvious or as familiar when you come back to pick up where you left off.

                                    So, if I can prevail upon you to put together even a very simple demo, I'd volunteer right away as a test subject to see if I could replicate it. And if I can, then you can be confident that if you had to shelf your work then you could come back years later and resume without help just based upon re-reading your own notes. :sunglasses:

                                    acbA 1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • NeverDieN NeverDie

                                      @acb Thanks for your post!

                                      My nRF52 skills have gotten a bit rusty, so in case you're no longer around when I circle back to this toopic in the future, I'm going to jump the gun and ask you now so that your answer can be memorialized here and then suitably curated by Hek for years to come: How exactly do you ensure that your bootloader is loaded into the proper bootloader memory segments and not treated like a regular program and stored in ordinary, non-privlidged program memory? I'm guessing it's accomplished through a linker directive of some kind? If you could share even a brief simple example here on how to implant the bootloader code where it needs to be, I'm sure it would be immensely helpful to anyone who wants to create a custom bootloader of their own. ;-)

                                      Actually, it seems you did offer a summary of how to do it when you wrote "Manually entering these upload states is similar to the nRF52832. Uploading via FTDI works as you would expect. Ground P1.06 (USR BTN) and reset (ground P0.21, MCU RST, briefly) and the nRF52840 will expect a DFU over USB either via it’s COM port or UF2 if mounted. On the Dongle, LED1 will fade up and down slowly and I think the RGB LED goes green if mounted.", but again a step-by-step actual example, with demo files, would really drive it home. Now, some people might consider that much detail would constitute a "no thinking required" guide and therefore overkill, but I'd prefer overkill to underkill any day. I'm sure at least some others who are reading this would rather have s complete demo example that's too basic than have to puzzle over a missing or vague step. It may not seem like it's missing or vague to you now, but believe me if you ever have to switch to a different project for a while, it might not look anywhere near as obvious or as familiar when you come back to pick up where you left off.

                                      So, if I can prevail upon you to put together even a very simple demo, I'd volunteer right away as a test subject to see if I could replicate it. And if I can, then you can be confident that if you had to shelf your work then you could come back years later and resume without help just based upon re-reading your own notes. :sunglasses:

                                      acbA Offline
                                      acbA Offline
                                      acb
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #1878

                                      Thanks @NeverDie, I appreciate that.

                                      Okay, well, the short answer to your question is yes, it’s a “linker directive” or rather a series of them, usually a file with the .ld extension. There’s normally a general stack/heap/etc. one called nrf_common.ld in Adafruit’s BSP, and then an architecture-specific one: nrf52.ld I think for the nRF52832 and nrf52840.ld for, well, I bet you can guess! ;)

                                      This architecture-specific linker directive contains the memory locations for things like the MBR, ram region for the bootloader, initialized and (shared) non-init RAM, bootloader settings/configuration, MBR parameters, etc. The bootloader itself can of course read this memory allocation/settings/configuration data and then load any new application code or indeed new bootloader code wherever it needs to be. That’s why it’s best to let the bootloader perform the FOTA, either via serial or BLE.

                                      Now I’m guessing here, but ideally, the arduino-NVM library that sort of emulates AVR EEPROM for MySensors could just read this information too and store it’s virtual EEPROM pages around these allocations. Currently, I think it just tries to determine the top application page address from the UICR and then allocate the pages based on that. It’s been a while since I looked at the code, so it might have changed. Essentially, it’s trying to find where the bootloader starts (if there is one) and allocate some pages a bit back from there to be safe.

                                      In theory, a large enough application could overwrite this area - that’s why it’s not the best solution as I mentioned earlier - but if you reach that point, you’ve gotten so close to the bootloader with your application code, you might be in (other) trouble anyway! ;)

                                      As far as a step-by-step with actual example code, demo files, etc. I’m more than happy to do it but it’ll take me some time. And would be helped if you could specify a particular board you’d like me to target (especially if I have one lying around), e.g. Nordic’s nRF52840 Dongle, Ebyte module, etc?

                                      The other side of this is the FreeRTOS side. Would you like examples for the lowest possible power?

                                      It seems like that’s how folk like these devices to operate. Going down around 2µA in bare System ON sleep (nRF52832) and around 300nA in bare System OFF sleep requires more involved MySensors code modifications, due to (among other things!) how FreeRTOS takes care of the power management when idling, use of the RTC(s), how it handles ISR callbacks, attaches interrupts, etc. By “bare” I mean no additional sensors, just, for example, a button or internal RTC (only in System ON) to wake it.

                                      Does all, or at least some, of that make sense? :)

                                      NeverDieN 1 Reply Last reply
                                      1
                                      • acbA acb

                                        Thanks @NeverDie, I appreciate that.

                                        Okay, well, the short answer to your question is yes, it’s a “linker directive” or rather a series of them, usually a file with the .ld extension. There’s normally a general stack/heap/etc. one called nrf_common.ld in Adafruit’s BSP, and then an architecture-specific one: nrf52.ld I think for the nRF52832 and nrf52840.ld for, well, I bet you can guess! ;)

                                        This architecture-specific linker directive contains the memory locations for things like the MBR, ram region for the bootloader, initialized and (shared) non-init RAM, bootloader settings/configuration, MBR parameters, etc. The bootloader itself can of course read this memory allocation/settings/configuration data and then load any new application code or indeed new bootloader code wherever it needs to be. That’s why it’s best to let the bootloader perform the FOTA, either via serial or BLE.

                                        Now I’m guessing here, but ideally, the arduino-NVM library that sort of emulates AVR EEPROM for MySensors could just read this information too and store it’s virtual EEPROM pages around these allocations. Currently, I think it just tries to determine the top application page address from the UICR and then allocate the pages based on that. It’s been a while since I looked at the code, so it might have changed. Essentially, it’s trying to find where the bootloader starts (if there is one) and allocate some pages a bit back from there to be safe.

                                        In theory, a large enough application could overwrite this area - that’s why it’s not the best solution as I mentioned earlier - but if you reach that point, you’ve gotten so close to the bootloader with your application code, you might be in (other) trouble anyway! ;)

                                        As far as a step-by-step with actual example code, demo files, etc. I’m more than happy to do it but it’ll take me some time. And would be helped if you could specify a particular board you’d like me to target (especially if I have one lying around), e.g. Nordic’s nRF52840 Dongle, Ebyte module, etc?

                                        The other side of this is the FreeRTOS side. Would you like examples for the lowest possible power?

                                        It seems like that’s how folk like these devices to operate. Going down around 2µA in bare System ON sleep (nRF52832) and around 300nA in bare System OFF sleep requires more involved MySensors code modifications, due to (among other things!) how FreeRTOS takes care of the power management when idling, use of the RTC(s), how it handles ISR callbacks, attaches interrupts, etc. By “bare” I mean no additional sensors, just, for example, a button or internal RTC (only in System ON) to wake it.

                                        Does all, or at least some, of that make sense? :)

                                        NeverDieN Offline
                                        NeverDieN Offline
                                        NeverDie
                                        Hero Member
                                        wrote on last edited by NeverDie
                                        #1879

                                        @acb said in nRF5 action!:

                                        As far as a step-by-step with actual example code, demo files, etc. I’m more than happy to do it but it’ll take me some time. And would be helped if you could specify a particular board you’d like me to target (especially if I have one lying around), e.g. Nordic’s nRF52840 Dongle, Ebyte module, etc?

                                        Yes to nRF52840. Dealer's choice as to which nRF52840 module--i.e. I'm neutral, so whatever is more convenient for you. I suppose for others reading this the dongle might be a good choice though.

                                        The other side of this is the FreeRTOS side. Would you like examples for the lowest possible power?

                                        Is FreeRTOS definitely required? I suppose I could live with it, but as a simple demo even just some simple code that did nothing more than blink an LED and which resided where the bootloader out to be and which got loaded automatically from protected memory on reset as though it were a real bootloader is sufficient. If I knew how to do that one small thing, then I presume I could extend it to be a real wireless bootloader instead of just an LED blinker. I'm just missing the info on how to put code into the privileged and normally protected bootloader location. I'm hoping it's actually pretty simple and straightforward and not something lengthy and complex like the way the Nordic SDK advocates doing it.

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • N ncollins

                                          Update on my NRF52805 Breakout:

                                          • I2C is now working, just a few small changes to select the right interface
                                          • Power consumption looks good, around 1.8uA. The Si7021 module is reading 2.5uA in isolation.
                                            IMG_1292.JPG

                                          Just need to test SPI and figure out a clever name for the board, and should be good to go.

                                          J Offline
                                          J Offline
                                          Jon Raymond
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #1880

                                          @ncollins Hey any update on your NRF52805 Breakout work? I've got a couple of the Ebyte modules that I have been playing around with. Found your pull request on GitHub for board support in sandeepmistry's nrf5 core. Wondering if you got any further as the pull request hasn't been merged and it would be great to see Arduino support for these modules.

                                          N 2 Replies Last reply
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