y5 nRF51822 mbug

The NRF51822 Bluetooth Low Energy mbug board from y5 Design is an easy to use ARM Cortex-M0 microcontroller with BLE. This board can be used as a standalone system or stacked with other mbugs to create multifunctional systems.

Table of Contents

  1. Features
  2. Pinout
  3. Drag-n-drop programming via LPC11u35 mbug PC Interface
  4. USB Serial Port via LPC11u35 mbug PC Interface
  5. Firmware Over the Air FOTA Updates
  6. Android Utility Application

Features

  • NRF51822 BLE SoC from Nordic Semiconductor
    • Bluetooth 4.1 Compliant (Bluetooth Smart)
    • Low Power, ARM Cortex-M0 suitable for a wide range of applications
    • Cortex-M0, 16 MHz
    • 16 KB RAM, 256 KB Flash
    • External 32.768 KHz crystal enables lowest power operation
    • SWD Interface for nRF51822
      • Debugging with offline IDE using J-Link
      • Burn firmware using J-Link
  • Support Device Firmware Update (DFU) Over-the-Air via BLE
  • 12 GPIO’s accessible on pin header
  • 3 LEDs
  • 2 general purpose buttons and 1 reset button
  • mbed HDK & SDK enabled requires LPC11u35 mbug as PC interface
    • Drag-n-drop programming
      • CMSIS-DAP
    • USB Serial Port virtual serial for communication
    • Online development tools
    • Easy to use C/C++ SDK
      • Lots of published libraries and projects

Pinout

/media/uploads/meneau/pinout_nrf81522_6.png

  • Part of mbug™ ecosystem
    • Smaller than a quarter, at approximately 0.9" x 0.9"
    • Can be used as a standalone microcontroller or with other mbugs (sensors, displays, relay, servo, battery, etc.)
    • 12 different mbugs (2 processors, 9 expansion, 1 prototype)
    • stackable 100-mil pitch dual 8-pin connector
    • standardized pinout strategy to ensure interoperability
    • supports standard interfaces (USB, UART, SPI, I2C)
  • mbed.org Developer Website
    • Online Compiler
    • High Level C/C++ SDK
    • Active developer community

Drag-n-drop programming via LPC11u35 mbug PC Interface

To use Drag-n-Drop programming of the nRF51822 mbug the LPC11U35 mbug loaded with PC interface firmware is required.

To turn the y5 LPC11U35 mbug board into a PC interface for the y5 nRF51822 mbug BLE board the following binary file will need to be downloaded into the LPC11U35. See http://developer.mbed.org/platforms/Y5-LPC11U35-MBUG/

Bootloader Firmware

USB Serial Port via LPC11u35 mbug PC Interface

To use the debug serial port out of the nRF51822 to the LPC11U35 USB interface to emulate a serial port over USB see example here: https://developer.mbed.org/handbook/SerialPC

On a Windows PC a driver needs to be installed in order to receive serial data to a terminal window: https://developer.mbed.org/handbook/Windows-serial-configuration

Firmware Over the Air FOTA Updates

This means that you can program the nRF51822 without going through the mbed interface chip over USB.

Y5 Design will soon be releasing FOTA capability in utility android app.

https://developer.mbed.org/teams/Bluetooth-Low-Energy/wiki/Firmware-Over-the-Air-FOTA-Updates

Android Utility Application

/media/uploads/andersonj55126/app_1.png

/media/uploads/y5design/3up.png

  Pre-order