nocko / nrf51-devel

Breakout board for Nordic nRF51x22

nRF51x22 Barebones Development Board

Make your own! ($9 for 3 boards + ~$10/ea. in parts)

1. In a web browser: Browse to oshpark.com, select "Get Started Now", then "Select a file on your computer". Select gerbers/nRF51.zip from the repo. Fill out the name, contact and billing information.

2. Order the parts. Current BoM Shopping Cart (for three boards) @ Mouser: http://www.mouser.com/ProjectManager/ProjectDetail.aspx?AccessID=88e3ea2c37

3. Practice your reflow soldering technique while you wait for parts and boards to show up.

4. Fun!

Make it better

If you've never used gEDA before, start with this simple tutorial. Once you're familiar with the gschem and pcb UI feel free to clone the repo in github with the fork button or clone the repo using the CLI:

git clone https://github.com/nocko/nRF51-devel

Interesting Files in the Repo

• nRF51.sch:

  gschem schematic. Edit this file with gschem to add or remove components or change the way the components are connected.

• nRF51.pcb:

  pcb layout. Edit with pcb to change the locations of the components on the board or to place new components added in gschem.

• attrib:

  template files for the fields that should appear in a bill of materials file generated by gnetlist

• project:

  gsch2pcb project file. Setup options to import tdcs.sch into board.pcb. Options like path to pcb footprints, names of schematics to process, and output name.

• gafrc:

   Options for gschem. Primarily the location of local schematic
   symbols
  

• gerber/*:

  Gerber files generated from the *.pcb files. generate-gerbers builds the gerbers and creates a zipfile(s) that can be sent to OSH Park without modification.

• bom.txt:

  Bill of Materials, the components you need to buy to populate the board. Eventually this will auto generate via gnetlist, but for now the digikey part numbers are added manually.

General Workflow

1. Add new components or change the circuit diagram in nRF51.sch using gschem.

2. Run: gsch2pcb project

3. Follow the instructions provided by gsch2pcb to insert the new components.

4. Adjust the pcb layout using pcb and save file

5. Make gerbers/oshpark zip files: cd gerbers; ./generate-gerbers.sh

6. Recreate the BoM: gnetlist -g bom -o bom.txt <project>.sch

License

All files are licensed CC-BY 3.0 unless otherwise marked. Full text of the CC license is available in LICENSE.txt

nrf51-devel's Issues

Eagle CAD, et al.

Hi Shawn,

Thanks for sharing this project. I am in the process of designing something similar, but with a smaller footprint. Is there some way to import your schematic and board design into Eagle CAD? I'll probably just make it from scratch using your schematic as a guide.

Also, do you know of a tutorial that shows how to program the device through the JTAG connector?

I have an nRF51822 mKit development board that I have been playing with using the mbed compiler. It has a debugger built in. I might be able to use it to program a custom board like yours.

I would like to learn how to use this chip well. Any suggestions for sample programs/projects that I could learn (copy) from? Thanks for your help.