BLE Module Firmware Development Q&A: NFC pins creates “Error 404 – signal not found” (technically)

When you start developing your firmware for your Nordic nRF52832 solution-based Raytac BLE module, you will (like on most other projects) bump into some difficulties.

The other day, we had yet another case where a simple thing caused major difficulties for even some of the brightest people – a customer couldn’t get their GPIO direction bit to work.

Although not too difficult to solve, it’s a common error that most customers end up having on our modules and that is because Pin 0.09 & 0.10 are set to NFC per Nordic’s default settings. In order to be able to use these pins as normal GPIOs, you will have to change those settings.

The two pins I am talking about are the ones linked to the NFC-part to the far left in the circuit example below:

So, to convert these two pins to normal GPIOs, here’s what you need to do:

In SES, you’ll need to add CONFIG_NFCT_PINS_AS_GPIOS.

Right-click on the project and click “Edit Options”

Select “Common”, click on “Preprocessor” under “Code” and then click “CONFIG_NFCT_PINS_AS_GPIOS”

Check out the link below for a reference example on Nordic’s DevZone.

Reference link: Nordic DevZone – NFC pins into GPIOs

Raytac Corporation

A Bluetooth Low Energy module maker based on Nordic Solutions!

www.raytac.com          email: cs@raytac.com