Nordic "nRF52840 Dongle" Support

I think you are right @Gordon about the board.py configuration; will look into it a bit more.

IMHO the NRF52840 is indeed nice because of the dedicated USB, and e.g. Thread (IEEE 802.15.4 / 6LowPan based) protocol support. Also, it has a nice amount of GPIO for advanced set-ups :)

yes, think about and then we can port to NINA B3 now :)

But, is there some tip to compile to NRF52840, or it´s easy too like the NRF52832 ?

One more thing might be interesting is that the nRF52840 has a low speed mode with better sensitivity: -103dBm sensitivity at 125kbps BLE vs -96dBm of the nRF52832 at 1Mbps. Also +8dBm max output vs +4dBm of the nRF52832.
That 7dBm receive sensitivity increase theoretically should double the range.

Has anyone tested, or has data on potential range improvement (preferably inside a building)? Nordic has published pretty impressive range outdoors...

Is there any gotcha? Other than there is no support for Bluetooth 5 on either my phone or laptop & I have no idea about the intricacies of Bluetooth versions....

We got 1km range communication outdoor with NINA B3

Oh, that's impressive. NINA B3 on both sides? What antenna did you use?

embedded antena!
nina to nina

Hi, any news about Nordic nRF52840 Dongle support? I just got one. Thank you.

I see that they are tryng to port it! I guy have success!

Did you see that ?

I believe it's actually pretty reasonable when ported to the DK now, so if the dongle uses the same pinouts then you could use the exact same hex file from that.

Unfortunately Nordic are only supporting the Thingy at the moment. Maybe if enough people prodded them they could be convinced to get me to do builds for the dongle ;)

Yes, i agree with you!

But did you ported to dongle ?

Not specifically, but Nordic do tend to use the same pinouts so the DK version may 'just work'

btw, i am writing a book about Alexa amazon and i would like to include your Espruino in a chapter, but needs to be to ESP32...and with 2Mb flash
Did you implemented SSL certificates to access AWS IOT ?

Did you implemented SSL certificates to access AWS IOT ?

I think so. On official Espruino WiFi boards you can supply SSL certificates: http://www.espruino.com/Storing+HTTPS+Ce­rtificates

On ESP32? Not sure, but it's possible. As with all this stuff while it'd be nice to support more hardware, I have to run a business and more hardware means more dev and support work for me - and yet no more income.

Gordon

Very interesting! Before i tests ESP32 + SSL + ASW IOT, please, tell me if ESPRUINO will runs in a 2Mb FLASH ESP32? I will use NINA W102.
if you say, dont loose time! It does not work! I cancel

I am testing first on WROOM! Works fine using TERATERM...
But ESPRUINO IDE not estabilish communication. Some tip ?

found! 115200

Gordon,
tryng to add ESPRUINO ESP32 to book, but...

Saving key
Saving cert
Connecting to Wifi
Saving ca
Done!
Connected...
Acessing AWS IOT
Connecting...
Uncaught InternalError: HTTPS init failed! mbedtls_x509_crt_parse of 'ca': Invalid format
at line 73 col 10
}).end();

     ^

in function called from system
Acessing AWS IOT
Connecting...
Uncaught InternalError: HTTPS init failed! mbedtls_x509_crt_parse of 'ca': Invalid format
at line 73 col 10
}).end();

     ^

in function called from system

Very strange :(

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dj6fcj0039064b­j/gordon.png?dl=0

Tried to build for the nRF52840 DK, but ran into two issues with provisioning:

First at line 160 in provision.sh: mv nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_a53641a/* targetlibs/nrf5x_15, the output contains some errors:

mv: cannot move 'nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_a53641a/components' to 'targetlibs/nrf5x_15/components': Permission denied
mv: cannot move 'nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_a53641a/config' to 'targetlibs/nrf5x_15/config': Permission denied
mv: cannot move 'nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_a53641a/documentation' to 'targetlibs/nrf5x_15/documentation': Permission denied
mv: cannot move 'nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_a53641a/examples' to 'targetlibs/nrf5x_15/examples': Permission denied
mv: cannot move 'nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_a53641a/external' to 'targetlibs/nrf5x_15/external': Directory not empty
mv: cannot move 'nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_a53641a/external_tools'­ to 'targetlibs/nrf5x_15/external_tools': Permission denied
mv: cannot move 'nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_a53641a/integration' to 'targetlibs/nrf5x_15/integration': Permission denied
mv: cannot move 'nRF5_SDK_15.0.0_a53641a/modules' to 'targetlibs/nrf5x_15/modules': Permission denied

Second is the SDK15 NFC patches. Which file should be patched?
Provision.sh:

  echo ========================================­==============
 echo "FIXME - SDK15 NFC patches don't apply cleanly"
 echo ========================================­==============
 cat targetlibs/nrf5x_15/patches/* | patch -p1

Output:

 ========================================­==============
 FIXME - SDK15 NFC patches don't apply cleanly
 ========================================­==============
can't find file to patch at input line 17
Perhaps you used the wrong -p or --strip option?
The text leading up to this was:
--------------------------
|From 97718ae8b320e9be84e533bb60c617d4c440d688­ Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
|From: AntiCat <github@anticat.ch>
|Date: Fri, 26 May 2017 02:48:29 +0200
|Subject: [PATCH 1/7] NFC: Removed NDEF frontend, prepared raw backend.
|
|Implementing NDEF in JS requires access to 10 byte
|tag header, holding UID and BCC.
|---
| .../nrf5x/components/nfc/t2t_lib/hal_t2t­/hal_nfc_t2t.c   | 16 +++++++++++++---
| .../nrf5x/components/nfc/t2t_lib/hal_t2t­/hal_nfc_t2t.h   |  1 +
| 2 files changed, 14 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
|
|diff --git a/targetlibs/nrf5x_15/components/nfc/t2t­_lib/hal_t2t/hal_nfc_t2t.c b/targetlibs/nrf5x_15/components/nfc/t2t­_lib/hal_t2t/hal_nfc_t2t.c
|index 1235e1d6..ca8b5cbf 100644
|--- a/targetlibs/nrf5x_15/components/nfc/t2t­_lib/hal_t2t/hal_nfc_t2t.c
|+++ b/targetlibs/nrf5x_15/components/nfc/t2t­_lib/hal_t2t/hal_nfc_t2t.c
--------------------------
File to patch: 

Not sure what's up with the permission issues at all. I don't get that, and it should be an empty directory I'd have thought :/

Also with NFC, it just doesn't work at the moment on SDK15. Just ignore the patch errors and it should still work as long as you don't try and enable NFC functionality.

Thanks, looks like the permission issues are some kind of WSL & remote VSCode locking up freakshow. Manually copying and moving solved the problem.

Edit: Applied the last patch 0008-GPIO-Fix-broken-includes.patch, and built it successfully!

Update: the 52840-DK does work: Can connect via virtual serial thru the built-in JLink + native USB(serial) + BLE. \o/

But couldn't get it working on the dongle :(

First try: just flash the same hex with nRF Connect. No luck.
The green LED was blinking periodically, took a look at the schematics: Of course the serial pins used on the DK are not really available on the dongle. The DK's tx pin is P0.06 - the green LED on the dongle. So took a look at the LED with a logic analyzer, and indeed it's crying into the void at 9600 bps: NRF ERROR 0x3 at ?:0 REBOOTING.

Tried to create a board file for the dongle, but no luck. Compiles OK, but doesn't do anything :/ Attached the board file, if anyone wants to give it a try.

1 Attachment

• NRF52840DO.py

Got it working \o/
I think the pins need some cleanup (a couple of pins are not available on the dongle)
Attached the board and hex files, if anybody want to play around.

2 Attachments

• espruino_2v04.33_nrf52840_dongle.hex
• NRF52840DONGLE.py

Working on my dongle! Thank you!

>process.env
={
  VERSION: "2v04.33",
  GIT_COMMIT: "f34cce8e",
  BOARD: "NRF52840DONGLE",
  FLASH: 1048576, RAM: 262144,
  SERIAL: "321d5edb-78df5aa8",
  CONSOLE: "Bluetooth",
  MODULES: "Flash,Storage,hea" ... "etworkJS,neopixel",
  EXPTR: 536885656 }
>