n-PRO-30 is an mbed-enabled Bluetooth Low Energy development board from the n-Blocks family, in the standard n-Blocks pro form factor.

n-PRO-30 is a simple Bluetooth Low Energy board based on Nordic nRF58232. It consists of temperature/humidity sensor, acceleration sensor and ambient light sensor which can be used to collect data and transmit it over bluetooth. The board supports the standard Nordic Software Development Tool-chain using Keil, IAR and GCC. It also supports ARM mbed tool-chain for rapid prototyping and development using mbed’s IDE and tool-chain with an extensive range of open-source software libraries.

• Nordic SoftDevice ready
• Support for concurrent multi-protocol
• Type 2 near field communication (NFC-A) tag with wakeup-on-field and touch-to-pair capabilities
• 12-bit, 200 ksps ADC - 8 configurable channels with programmable gain
• 64 level comparator
• 15 level low power comparator with wakeup from System OFF mode
• Temperature sensor
• 32 general purpose I/O pins
• 3x 4-channel pulse width modulator (PWM) unit with EasyDMA
• Digital microphone interface (PDM)
• 5x 32-bit timer with counter mode
• Up to 3x SPI master/slave with EasyDMA
• Up to 2x I2C compatible 2-wire master/slave
• I2S with EasyDMA
• UART (CTS/RTS) with EasyDMA
• Programmable peripheral interconnect (PPI)
• Quadrature decoder (QDEC)
• AES HW encryption with EasyDMA
• Autonomous peripheral operation without CPU intervention using PPI and EasyDMA
• 3x real-time counter (RTC)
• Single crystal operation

• mbed compatibility supports BLE and easy development (use Nordic nRF52-DK platform)
• nRF5 SDK for Mesh
• IoT SDK for applications using IPv6 over Bluetooth low energy

n-PRO-30 is a HOST board with four Hirose DF30-series 60-pin low profile connectors at bottom side, following the n-Blocks PRO form factor.

• Follow the first part of this tutorial
• Download and install GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain
• Update the PATH variable(s) to include the GNU tools, something like:

C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU Tools ARM Embedded\7 2017-q4-major\bin

• Test the path by typing

arm-none-eabi-gcc --version

• Download and UNZIP in a convenient directory nRF5 SDK Software Development Kit for the nRF51 Series and nRF52
• Download and UNZIP in a convenient directory the build tools from here
• Update the PATH to include Build Tools directory, or copy the .exe files from .bin directory to blinky project directory
• Set the toolchain path in makefile.windows, located in

<SDK>/components/toolchain/gcc

• It should be something like:

GNU_INSTALL_ROOT := $(PROGFILES)/GNU Tools ARM Embedded/4.9 2015q3   // Toolchain path
GNU_VERSION := 4.9.3  
GNU_PREFIX := arm-none-eabi

• Copy the .exe files from .bin directory to blinky project directory
• Edit main.c, changing the GPIO line that is connected to the LED:

#include <stdbool.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include "nrf_delay.h"
#include "boards.h"
 
int main(void)
{
    NRF_GPIO->DIRSET = (1 << 17);   // GPIO17 output,n-DAP LED
 
    /* Toggle LED */
    while (true)
    {
            NRF_GPIO->OUTSET = (1 << 17); // GPIO17 HIGH
            nrf_delay_ms(100);
            NRF_GPIO->OUTCLR = (1 << 17); // GPIO17 LOW
            nrf_delay_ms(100);
    }
}

• Open command-line and change directory to

<SDK>\examples\peripheral\blinky\pca10040\blank\armgcc

• Run

make

• Program the Flash Memory n-BLE with the created .bin file:

F:\prj_soft\nRF5_SDK_12.3.0_d7731ad\examples\peripheral\blinky\pca10040\blank\armgcc\_build\nrf52832_xxaa.bin

• Select target Nordic nRF52-DK
• Create a blinky program like below

#include "mbed.h"
 
DigitalOut led1(P0_17);
 
// main() runs in its own thread in the OS
int main() {
    while (true) {
        led1 = !led1;
        wait(0.05);
    }
}

• Program the Flash memory with the created .hex file

• nRF52-DK can be used as SWD programmer.
  
• A DIY adaptation cable is needed.
  

• nRF52-DK appears as a USB DISK. Just drag and drop the file created from compiler to the disk.
  
• nRF52-DK can use both .hex and .bin files.
  
• mbed on-line compiler produces .hex, while GCC produces .bin and .hex

• BLE Beacon Humidity & Temperature Sensor
• BLE Beacon Environmental Sensor
• LoRa Sensor with BLE Commisioning
• BLE simple Beacon for Localisation

• n-pro-30