Okkk!

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve been waiting for boards plus orders have been keeping Circuit Dojo HQ busy.

I digress. I mentioned this guy before but the first rev had some issues. A batch of the second version is built and ready to go.

It works with all Circuit Dojo Feather boards. (nRF91xx, nRF52833 (unreleased), etc) and supports use of the Raspberry Pi Debug Probe and 10-pin Segger JLink interface. I even went the extra step to bring out the reset pin for the 10-pin 😉


Here’s the bottom:

I imagine this would be good for mass programming and also de-borking boards if you do something silly.

The design will be open sourced at the launch of the nRF91×1 Feather. I’ll have more on that shortly. For those folks who are looking for early samples I should have some this week as long as assembly & testing works out OK.

Great news. How can it be ordered?

Just to mention:
The nRF9161 feather (beta) board shipped in August works pretty well. Stable online now for more than 30days.

    14 days later

    Lots going on here! I’m working on updating my test fixtures as an all-in-one. The first step is to transition the 1-up fixture and then the 9 up fixture.

    I’m also just about ready to send boards over for RF testing. I will also have more boards for more beta/field testing. 😃 So for those who reached out to me, I haven’t forgotten about you.

    More very soon.

    24 days later

    Things are coming together with the all-in-one 1-up tester.

    It looks like what I designed which is a plus 😃. It will do all testing that I was previously doing across 3 test stations.

    I also have some other news regarding the new board. Since the nRF9151 is fresh off the production line I decided to modify the nRF9161 Design to accommodate the new SiP.

    It has the same features and functionality of the original design plus some room to grow as Nordic continues to develop on the platform. A few should be going out for FCC/CE next week if all goes well. The rest will be up for grabs once the tester is 100%.

      jaredwolff
      Fantastic! I was going to suggest the same, i.e. replace nRF9161 with a nRF9151. The latter now being Nordic Semi’s preferred recommendation for all new nRF91 designs. More real estate for you to add components , for example - accelerometers and microphone for Edge AI or a 10-pin mini-SWD connecter.

      The new test fixture looks impressive. A significant boost to your testing.

      btw - I’ve been field testing nRF9131-EK for DECT NR+ and LTE-M/NB-IoT with GNSS. A very neat board, slightly longer than a Sparkfun Thing+ board, with nPM1300, nPM600, 256Mb external flash memory, and a Segger J-link OB. There are a few more enhancements coming down the line to make it even better.

          Just to mention: the nRF9161 prototype does a pretty well job on my side. Works since August without issues.

            The pin VUSB is power input from USB? So it’s possible to power the device via that pin, if no USB is connected?

              zpm1066 btw - I’ve been field testing nRF9131-EK for DECT NR+ and LTE-M/NB-IoT with GNSS. A very neat board, slightly longer than a Sparkfun Thing+ board, with nPM1300, nPM600, 256Mb external flash memory, and a Segger J-link OB. There are a few more enhancements coming down the line to make it even better.

              I believe the 9131 does require more certification testing in order to legal deploy devices that use it. Versus the 9160, 9161 and 9151.

              AchimKraus Is there an update on the pyocd issue?

              I have not made progress. I’ve been focusing elsewhere. I have been playing with using probe-rs instead as it has been added as a target recently for Zephyr. I ported the pyocd code that updates the modem firmware also to use probe-rs (and using it in production). So I’m leaning to use that.

              Just to mention: the nRF9161 prototype does a pretty well job on my side. Works since August without issues.
              That’s amazing to hear. Thank you for testing it @AchimKraus !

              AchimKraus The pin VUSB is power input from USB? So it’s possible to power the device via that pin, if no USB is connected?

              VUSB is connected direct to the headers so you could power the device through the pin:

              I have not tested if it plays well with USB. (it may work just fine) I typically recommend using VBAT pin for external power and turning the charger off. It depends on your application though.

                      jaredwolff I believe the 9131 does require more certification testing in order to legal deploy devices that use it. Versus the 9160, 9161 and 9151.

                      Agreed. The nRF9151 is the sanction proof nRF91 and what Nordic Semi recommends for all new cellular designs.

                      The nRF9131-EK is a very goodcompact reference design for DECT NR+ and LTE with J-Link OB that can be used as a dev board if the additional expansion offered by nRF9151-DK is not required.

                          zpm1066 The nRF9131-EK is a very goodcompact reference design for DECT NR+ and LTE with J-Link OB that can be used as a dev board if the additional expansion offered by nRF9151-DK is not required.

                          Oh yea. Feather-ish formfactor. Didn’t realize they had something this small. Good on them.

                              Great! Do you currently have a schedule for the nRF9151 feather (beta-boards)?

                                5 days later

                                AchimKraus Great! Do you currently have a schedule for the nRF9151 feather (beta-boards)?

                                Pre-order is now available. I have a few in stock I can ration between you and @zpm1066. Full availability Q1 2025. 😃 (I’m aiming for sooner though)

                                    Any discount code possible? Mainly to compensate the shipping costs ;-).

                                    5 days later

                                    Hi @AchimKraus

                                    No discounts on the nRF9151 until it’s fully launched. These beta boards take a long time to assemble and test. Upshot is the tester is nearly complete. 😃

                                    Keep an eye out for upcoming discounts on the nRF9160 though..

                                    On another note:

                                    I played around with the nRF9151 Feather using nRF Connect for VSCode. Works well for those who prefer Nordic’s tools. Only big addition is to installing probe-rs or pyocd. Update to the docs are here: https://docs.circuitdojo.com/nrf9151-feather/using-vscode.html

                                    13 days later

                                    jaredwolff

                                    On the current nrf9160 Feather USB does NOT play well when powering the device over the VUSB pin.

                                    It would be nice if the next feather did for debugging purposes. I currently have my feathers deployed in 12V LiFePo battery powered systems with a buck converter to give me 5V for the feather and other devices.

                                    I probably should’ve used the VBAT pin to power the feather, but it would be nice to add small lithium battery to act as a backup so I can continue logging power issues in the larger system.

                                        Voxorin On the current nrf9160 Feather USB does NOT play well when powering the device over the VUSB pin.

                                        Voxorin which version do you have again? Can you explain in what way? I removed the diode on 5V a few revisions ago.

                                        Voxorin It would be nice if the next feather did for debugging purposes. I currently have my feathers deployed in 12V LiFePo battery powered systems with a buck converter to give me 5V for the feather and other devices.

                                        Right now i’m powering it via the 5V pin for testing. So, it should work out in the field the same way. The only detail is whether or not it will be happy when you plug in USB.

                                        VBUS pin is directly connected to USB in both designs now:


                                        Voxorin I probably should’ve used the VBAT pin to power the feather, but it would be nice to add small lithium battery to act as a backup so I can continue logging power issues in the larger system.

                                        Gotcha!

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