nRF52 Hardware

In our nRF52-focussed exercises we will use both the nRF52840 Development Kit (DK) and the nRF52840 Dongle. We'll mainly develop programs for the DK and use the Dongle to assist with some exercises.

nRF52840 Development Kit (DK)

Connect one end of one of the supplied micro USB cable to the USB connector J2 of the board and the other end to your PC.

💬 These directions assume you are holding the board "horizontally" with components (switches, buttons and pins) facing up. In this position, rotate the board, so that its convex shaped short side faces right. You'll find one USB connector (J2) on the left edge, another USB connector (J3) on the bottom edge and 4 buttons on the bottom right corner.

Labeled Diagram of the nRF52840 Development Kit (DK)

The board has several switches to configure its behavior. The out of the box configuration is the one we want. If the above instructions didn't work for you, check the position of the following switches:

SW6 is set to the DEFAULT position (to the right - nRF = DEFAULT).
SW7 (protected by Kapton tape) is set to the Def. position (to the right - TRACE = Def.).
SW8 is set to the ON (to the left) position (Power = ON)
SW9 is set to the VDD position (center - nRF power source = VDD)
SW10 (protected by Kapton tape) is set to the OFF position (to the left - VEXT -> nRF = OFF).

Windows

When the nRF52-DK is connected to your PC it shows up as a removable USB Flash Drive (named JLINK) and also as a USB Serial Device (COM port) in the Device Manager under the Ports section.

Linux

When the nRF52-DK is connected to your PC it shows up as a USB device under lsusb. The device will have a VID of 1366 and a PID of 10xx or 01xx, where x can vary:

$ lsusb
(..)
Bus 001 Device 014: ID 1366:1051 SEGGER 4-Port USB 2.0 Hub

The device will also show up in the /dev directory as a ttyACM device:

$ ls /dev/ttyACM*
/dev/ttyACM0

macOS

When the nRF52-DK is connected to your Mac it shows up as a removable USB flash drive (named JLINK) on the Desktop, and also a USB device named "J-Link" when executing ioreg -p IOUSB -b -n "J-Link".

$ ioreg -p IOUSB -b -n "J-Link"
(...)
  | +-o J-Link@14300000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x10000606a, registered, matched, active, busy 0 $
  |     {
  |       (...)
  |       "idProduct" = 4117
  |       (...)
  |       "USB Product Name" = "J-Link"
  |       (...)
  |       "USB Vendor Name" = "SEGGER"
  |       "idVendor" = 4966
  |       (...)
  |       "USB Serial Number" = "000683420803"
  |       (...)
  |     }
  |

The device will also show up in the /dev directory as tty.usbmodem<USB Serial Number>:

$ ls /dev/tty.usbmodem*
/dev/tty.usbmodem0006834208031

$ lsusb
(..)
Bus 001 Device 023: ID 1915:521f Nordic Semiconductor ASA 4-Port USB 2.0 Hub

The device will also show up in the /dev directory as a ttyACM device:

$ ls /dev/ttyACM*
/dev/ttyACM0

macOS

The device shows up as a usb device when executing ioreg -p IOUSB -b -n "Open DFU Bootloader". The device will have a vendor ID ("idVendor") of 6421 and a product ID ("idProduct") of 21023:

$ ioreg -p IOUSB -b -n "Open DFU Bootloader"
(...)
| +-o Open DFU Bootloader@14300000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100005d5b, registered, matched, ac$
  |     {
  |       (...)
  |       "idProduct" = 21023
  |       (...)
  |       "USB Product Name" = "Open DFU Bootloader"
  |       (...)
  |       "USB Vendor Name" = "Nordic Semiconductor"
  |       "idVendor" = 6421
  |       (...)
  |       USB Serial Number" = "CA1781C8A1EE"
  |       (...)
  |     }
  |

The device will also show up in the /dev directory as tty.usbmodem<USB Serial Number>:

$ ls /dev/tty.usbmodem*
/dev/tty.usbmodemCA1781C8A1EE1

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