nRF5 SDK
Offical Software Development Kit for nRF51 and nRF52 Series¶

Overview¶

The nRF5 SDK is your first stop for building fully featured, reliable and secure applications with the nRF52 and nRF51 Series. It offers developers a wealth of varied modules and examples right across the spectrum including numerous Bluetooth Low Energy profiles, Device Firmware Upgrade (DFU), GATT serializer and driver support for all peripherals on all nRF5 Series devices. The nRF5 SDK will almost certainly have something for your needs in developing exciting yet robust wireless products.

Follow this guide to set up a nRF5 SDK development environment on your system, and then build and run a sample application.

Set up the toolchain¶

To build the nRF5 SDK examples, GNU ARM Embedded Toolchain is required. Follow one of the following guides for your host operating system:

macOS
Windows
Linux

macOS¶

GNU make is bundled with Xcode tools. Verify by running:
```
make --v
```
Download and install the GNU ARM Embedded Toolchain. The 6-2017-q2-update version is recommended. Then ensure the path is added to your OS PATH environment variable.
```
# in ~/.bash_profile, add the following script
export PATH="<path to install directory>/gcc-arm-none-eabi-6-2017-q2-update/bin:${PATH}"
```
Type the following in your terminal to verify if the path is set correctly:
```
arm-none-eabi-gcc --version
```
Download the nRF5x-Command-Line-Tools-OSX, then extract the .tar archive anywhere on your filesystem. Ensure the extracted directory is added to your OS PATH environment variable.
```
# in ~/.bash_profile, add the following script
export PATH="<the path to the extracted directory>:${PATH}"
```
Type the following in your terminal to verify if mergehex works:
```
mergehex --version
```
Install the latest stable version of pyOCD via pip as follows:
```
pip install -U pyocd
```
Type the following in your terminal to verify if pyocd works:
```
pyocd --version
```

Windows¶

On Windows the easiest way to install the dependencies is to use the MSYS2. You can do so by performing the following steps:

Download and run the installer - "x86_64" for 64-bit, "i686" for 32-bit Windows.
Start MSYS2. Update the package database and core system packages with:
```
pacman -Syu
```
If needed, close MSYS2, run it again from Start menu. Update the rest with:
```
pacman -Su
```
Install dependencies:
```
pacman -S git make python2
```
Download and install the GNU ARM Embedded Toolchain. The 6-2017-q2-update version is recommended. Run the installer and follow the given instructions. Upon completion, check the Add path to environment variable option. Then verify if the compiler works:
```
arm-none-eabi-gcc --version
```
Download the nRF5x-Command-Line-Tools for Win32. Run the installer and follow the given instructions. Then verify if mergehex works:
```
mergehex --version
```
Install the latest stable version of pyOCD via pip as follows:
```
pip install -U pyocd
```
Type the following in your terminal to verify if pyocd works:
```
pyocd --version
```

Linux¶

This section describes how to set up the development environment on Ubuntu. The steps should be similar for other Linux distributions.

Ensure your host system is up to date before proceeding.
```
sudo apt-get update
```
```
sudo apt-get upgrade
```
Install the following packages using your system’s package manager.
```
sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall
```
Download and install the GNU ARM Embedded Toolchain. The 6-2017-q2-update version is recommended. Then ensure the path is added to your OS PATH environment variable.
```
# in ~/.bash_profile, add the following script
export PATH="<path to install directory>/gcc-arm-none-eabi-6-2017-q2-update/bin:${PATH}"
```
Type the following in your terminal to verify if the path is set correctly:
```
arm-none-eabi-gcc --version
```
Download the nRF5x-Command-Line-Tools-Linux-xxx, then extract the .tar archive anywhere on your filesystem. Ensure the extracted directory is added to your OS PATH environment variable.
```
# in ~/.bash_profile, add the following script
export PATH="<the path to the extracted directory>:${PATH}"
```
Type the following in your terminal to verify if mergehex works:
```
mergehex --version
```
Install the latest stable version of pyOCD via pip as follows:
```
pip install -U pyocd
```
Type the following in your terminal to verify if pyocd works:
```
pyocd --version
```

Clone the repository¶

Clone the grove-mesh-kit repository from GitHub:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/makerdiary/grove-mesh-kit

Or if you have already cloned the project, you may update the submodule:

git submodule update --init

Install the nRF5 SDK¶

Download the SDK file nRF5_SDK_v15.2.0_9412b96 from www.nordicsemi.com.

Extract the zip file to the grove-mesh-kit repository. This should give you the following folder structure:

./grove-mesh-kit/
├── LICENSE
├── README.md
├── config
├── docs
├── examples
├── firmware
├── mkdocs.yml
└── nrf_sdks
    ├── README.md
    ├── nRF5-SDK-for-Mesh
    └── nRF5_SDK_v15.2.0_9412b96

To use the nRF5 SDK you first need to set the toolchain path in makefile.windows or makefile.posix depending on platform you are using. That is, the .posix should be edited if your are working on either Linux or macOS. These files are located in:

<nRF5 SDK>/components/toolchain/gcc

Open the file in a text editor (Sublime is recommended), and make sure that the GNU_INSTALL_ROOT variable is pointing to your GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain install directory.

GNU_INSTALL_ROOT ?= $(HOME)/gcc-arm-none-eabi/gcc-arm-none-eabi-6-2017-q2-update/bin/
GNU_VERSION ?= 6.3.1
GNU_PREFIX ?= arm-none-eabi

Building the Grove CLI example¶

Now you can try to build the Grove CLI example:

Open terminal and change directory to:

cd ./grove-mesh-kit/examples/grove_cli/armgcc/

Compile the example by running:
```
make
```

Running the Grove CLI example¶

After compiling the source code, run the example:

Connect the nRF52840-MDK board to your PC using the USB-C cable.
Program the application and Softdevice by running:
```
make flash_all
```
Grove CLI will start automatically after programming. In Terminal, run:
```
screen /dev/cu.usbmodem846fa1a9d0de1 115200
```
Type Enter and grove. Test functionality of each command. If you need a hint you can call commands with option -h or –help.
Alternatively, Web Device CLI is a better choice. Just start the Web Device CLI by clicking the following link:
Click the Connect button and pair the Grove CLI device. Just do it as you did in the terminal.

Create an Issue¶

Interested in contributing to this project? Want to report a bug? Feel free to click here:

nRF5 SDK Offical Software Development Kit for nRF51 and nRF52 Series¶