10 years, 9 months ago.

Some guidance: I am confused with mbed

Hello everyone, I am new at this embedded electronics world. I am working hard to learn fast, specially with things related to the Internet of Things. Here is what've done so far, particularly with Bluetooth low energy:

A) I have built my own bluetooth 4 PCBs using Bluegiga's BLE112 modules and have been able to program the Bluegiga's modules with their BGscript b) I have built my own bluetooth 4 PCBs using Nordic nRF51822 from LairdTech's BL600 and have learned their SmartBasic language.

I am comfortable with basic PCB design (eaglecad stuff) and then coding the above modules and playing with Bluetooth low energy stuff.

Unfortunately both BL600 and BLE112 are quite expensive (+ - $16 bucks or so...) So now I want to move towards using cheaper nRF51822 modules that are more barebones such as this one I found for 5 dollars in China: http://see.sl088.com/w/images/a/aa/PTR5518_eng_V1.1.pdf

Anyway, now that I believe I have the nRF51822 module down, I am looking for good/affordable development environment, and when I come across mbed.org I thought I had found everything I need (compiler, community, widely accepted C/C++ ) - But I run into an issue: I simply don't understand how to use mbed.org solutions. I've watched the videos, read all pages over and over, but I still have the following questions:

a) Can I use the compiler and available libraries for any ARM based hardware out there, or only the boards mbed offers?

b) The following link ( http://mbed.org/questions/2718/Using-mbed-compiled-bin-without-mbed-har/ ) confirms that a person can use different Nordic nRF51822 modules with the mbed compiler, because that's how they did it according to the post... but when I tried it, the compiler asks me to add an specific mbed.org hardware platform, and I don't know how I can add a different one, except the one that is coming out in April (http://mbed.org/platforms/Nordic-nRF51822/).

c) Is there a page that can easily explain how to upload code to a board?... The site is not very straight forward in that regard... unless it has to do with mbed platforms only....

I do have the Segger JTAG board – ‘jlink lite’ if that is required to upload code to the boards.

Apologies for rumbling too much here.... I basically would love to start using the mbed development environment with my custom nRF51822 boards, but I have no idea how to start....

I just want to write C code and upload it to my ARM based nRF51822 custom board... is that possible? Any direction is welcomed!

I'd appreciate some guidance and I thank you in advance for the patience.

Regards, Flavio flavio@ortolanos.com