Building & Programming

Note: This is if you want to use Circuit Dojo's Zephyr Tools extension.

Building

In VSCode you can build a project with the

Zephyr Tools: Build

Zephyr Tools: Build Pristine

commands.

You can also build manually by running this in your application root:

west build -b circuitdojo_feather_nrf9161/nrf9161/ns -p -d build/circuitdojo_feather_nrf9161 --sysbuild

Note: the board target name has changed in NCS 2.7 for usage with west it's now: circuitdojo_feather_nrf9161/nrf9161/ns

Programming

You can easily program the nRF9161 Feather with the onboard CMSIS-DAP using:

pyocd
probe-rs

You can select a runner using

Zephyr Tools: Change Runner

or use the default (pyocd) to flash

Zephyr Tools: Flash

Make sure that pyocd is installed first. See how to install in the next section.

`pyocd`

pyocd is recommended as it's well tested with the nRF9161 Feather.

On Mac: before installing you'll need to install libusb using brew:

brew install libusb

To install run:

python3 -m pip install -U pyocd
pyocd pack install nRF9160_xxAA

You may need to add the binaries to your path. For instance, if you're using the Zephyr Tools venv, binaries live in:

/home/jaredwolff/.zephyrtools/env/bin/pyocd

More information on installing pyocd can be found on their website.

Usage examples:

The easiest way to use it is by using the --runner flag with west

west flash --runner pyocd

You can run it manually as well:

pyocd reset --target nrf9160_xxaa
pyocd load --target nRF9160_xxAA --format hex /home/jaredwolff/Git/blucloud/app/build/zephyr/merged.hex
pyocd erase --target nrf9160_xxaa --chip

You can also change/upgrade the modem firmware if you need to:

python3 nfed/scripts/modem_firmware_update.py scripts/mfw_nrf91x1_2.0.1.zip

Script is here.

`probe-rs`

To install use:

cargo install probe-rs-tools --git https://github.com/probe-rs/probe-rs --rev g21a3d98d

Note: Make sure you use the revision indicateda above. There are multiple improvements which makes programming several seconds speedier than pyocd

Then you can program using:

probe-rs download --chip nRF9160_xxAA --binary-format hex path/to/merged.hex --allow-erase-all

And once the probe-rs runner has made its way to NCS:

west flash --runner probe-rs

More info on probe-rs can be found on their website.