RNBD451 Add-on Board

Overview

The RNBD451 Add-on Board is an efficient low-cost development platform to evaluate and demonstrate the features, capabilities and interfaces of Microchip’s Bluetooth® Low Energy module, RNBD451PE. The add-on board is compliant to the mikroBUS™ standard and includes an on-board MCP2200 USB-to-UART converter enabling out-of-box evaluation with no other hardware requirements.

More information about the shield can be found at RNBD451 Add-on Board Primary User Guide [1].

Requirements

This shield is compatible with a development board that includes a mikroBUS™ socket. If a mikroBUS socket is not available, a mikroBUS adapter can be used to provide both an extension header and a mikroBUS interface. The mikroBUS™ Xplained Pro is an extension Board for the Xplained Pro evaluation platform, designed to support mikroBUS™ Click boards™ with Xplained Pro MCU boards.

Configurations

When bringing up the RNBD451 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) controller after a Power-On Reset (POR), the Zephyr Bluetooth subsystem sends the HCI reset command (the first HCI command) to the BLE controller. However, in the original design, this command is sent too early for the RNBD451, as it takes more than 400 ms from POR to be ready to accept the first HCI command.

To address this timing issue, introduce a delay in the Zephyr application to enable Bluetooth. This delay ensures that the HCI reset command is sent at the appropriate time. Add the following code snippet to the application to introduce a 500 ms delay before calling bt_enable():

k_sleep(K_MSEC(500));

Programming

Activate the presence of the shield for the project build by adding the --shield mchp_rnbd451_bt_mikrobus or --shield mchp_rnbd451_bt_xplained_pro when you invoke west build based on Mikrobus or Xplained Pro interface:

west build -b your_board_name --shield mchp_rnbd451_bt_mikrobus samples/bluetooth/peripheral

Or

west build -b your_board_name --shield mchp_rnbd451_bt_xplained_pro samples/bluetooth/peripheral