Arduino Core for Nordic Semiconductor nRF5 based boards

Program your Nordic Semiconductor nRF51 or nRF52 board using the Arduino IDE.

Does not require a custom bootloader on the device.

Supported boards

nRF52

• Plain nRF52 MCU
• Nordic Semiconductor nRF52 DK
  • For boards prior to 2016.9 (see sticker), the lastest JLink bootloader is required to upload sketches. To upgrade, press the boot/reset button while powering on the board and copy over the latest bootloader.
• Shenzhen Taida Century Technology nRF52 low cost development board

nRF51

• Plain nRF51 MCU
• BBC micro:bit
• Bluz DK
• Nordic Semiconductor nRF51822 Development Kit + nRF51422 Development Kit
• PCA10000
• PCA10001, PCA10002, PCA10003, PCA10004 via nRF6310(nRFgo)
• OSHChip
• RedBearLab BLE Nano
• RedBearLab nRF51822

Installing

Board Manager

1. Download and install the Arduino IDE
2. Start the Arduino IDE
3. Go into Preferences
4. Add https://sandeepmistry.github.io/arduino-nRF5/package_nRF5_boards_index.json as an "Additional Board Manager URL"
5. Open the Boards Manager from the Tools -> Board menu and install "Nordic Semiconductor nRF5 Boards"
6. Select your nRF5 board from the Tools -> Board menu

OS Specific Setup

OS X

No additional setup required.

Linux

No additional setup required.

Windows

Driver Setup for Segger J-Link

1. Download Zadig
2. Plugin Segger J-Link or DK board
3. Start Zadig
4. Select Options -> List All Devices
5. Select J-Link (Interface 2) from the device dropdown
6. Click Replace Driver

Flashing a SoftDevice

1. cd <SKETCHBOOK>, where <SKETCHBOOK> is your Arduino Sketch folder:

• OS X: ~/Documents/Arduino
• Linux: ~/Arduino
• Windows: ~/Documents/Arduino

2. Create the following directories: tools/nRF5FlashSoftDevice/tool/
3. Download nRF5FlashSoftDevice.jar to <SKETCHBOOK>/tools/nRF5FlashSoftDevice/tool/
4. Restart the Arduino IDE
5. Select your nRF board from the Tools -> Board menu
6. Select a SoftDevice from the Tools -> "SoftDevice: " menu
7. Select a Programmer (J-Link, ST-Link V2, or CMSIS-DAP) from the Tools -> "Programmer: " menu
8. Select Tools -> nRF5 Flash SoftDevice
9. Read license agreement
10. Click "Accept" to accept license and continue, or "Decline" to decline and abort
11. If accepted, SoftDevice binary will be flashed to the board

From git (for core development)

1. Follow steps from Board Manager section above
2. cd <SKETCHBOOK>, where <SKETCHBOOK> is your Arduino Sketch folder:

• OS X: ~/Documents/Arduino
• Linux: ~/Arduino
• Windows: ~/Documents/Arduino

3. Create a folder named hardware, if it does not exist, and change directories to it
4. Clone this repo: git clone https://github.com/sandeepmistry/arduino-nRF5.git sandeepmistry/nRF5
5. Restart the Arduino IDE

BLE

This Arduino Core does not contain any Arduino style API's for BLE functionality. All the relevant Nordic SoftDevice (S110, S130, S132) header files are included build path when a SoftDevice is selected via the Tools menu.

Recommend BLE Libraries

• BLEPeripheral
  • v0.3.0 and greater, available via the Arduino IDE's library manager.
  • Supports peripheral mode only.

Credits

This core is based on the Arduino SAMD Core and licensed under the same GPL License

The following tools are used:

• GCC ARM Embedded as the compiler
• A forked version of OpenOCD to flash sketches