BlueMicro Firmware

This is the original repository for a keyboard Firmware for nRF52832 Boards with a pinout compatible with the Arduino Pro Micro. This repository will not be up to date, please visit instead. I have largely abandondoned this project but might come back to it later.

Compabible Hardware

• BlueMicro V1.0 (Serial TX/RX routed through D2 and D3; Designed for the ErgoTravel only)
• BlueMicro V1.1 (Compatible with more Keyboards - Serial TX/RX are routed separately)
• BLE Phage (Compatible with even more Keyboards due to its small size - Serial USB and PoLi Charger on board)
• BLE Phage Basic (Compatible with even more Keyboards due to its small size - Serial TX/RX are routed separately)
• Adafruit nRF52 Feather (Software compatible - not Pinout compabible)

Maintainer: /u/jpconstantineau

For the Help Pages go here

Preparing your build and flashing environment

Follow the instructions on the Arduino BSP Setup page for the Adafruit nRF52 Feather. The BlueMicro_BLE firmware uses the same libraries and bootloader.

Depending on whether your hardware has on-board serial or not, you will need a serial USB adapter. Note that the hardware is +3.3V. As such, a standard +5V serial adapter may damage the nRF52 processor.

macOS installation

While following the above Adafruit article, to install nrfutil on macOS High Sierra the following commands may be required for part 2 "Third Party Tool Installation".

• curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
• sudo python get-pip.py
• sudo pip install pip==9.0.3
• sudo pip install tornado nosem
• sudo pip install nrfutil==0.5.3 --ignore-installed six

This will install python pip and downgrade it to version 9 (nrfutil fails with "No module named pip.req" when using the latest version). Next install the tornado and nosem packages and finally the version of nrfutil that can be used with Adafruits library (DFU via Serial).

Building the Firmware for your Keyboard

• Clone the Repository
• If the keyboard already exists in the Keyboards folder, copy the keyboard_config.h and keymap.h files to the "firmware" folder
• If example files are not available, take the keyboard config files that are the closest to yours.
• Make necessary adjustments to the two files. keyboard_config.h contains the configuration that should be relevant to the keyboard, regardless of the keymap. keymap.h is "your personal" keymap file.
• Compile the firmware
• Flash the firmware by serial. Depending if the hardware uses the DTR line to automatically reset the chip, you may have to manually press reset just before the flashing command gets called. If it doesn't work, make sure that the the lines are crossed (TX -> RX and RX <- TX).

Building from Windows PowerShell script

Has been tested on Windows 7 and 10.

Quick and easy

• Double cick the build-windows-shortcut in the build folder
• Follow on screen instructions

Command line with parameters

• Press the windows key, type "powershell", right click "Windows PowerShell", select "Run as Administrator", enter the command "Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass" and select Yes
• Run PowerShell and navigate to the build directory
• Run ./build-windows keyboard:keymap:target
• You can replace either keyboard, keymap or target with "all" as a wildcard
• Optional switches are -verbose and -continueOnError

Examples

• ./build-windows all
• ./build-windows ErgoTravel -verbose
• ./build-windows gherkin:default -continueOnError
• ./build-windows iris:default:left

Building from macOS shell script

The Arduino IDE must be installed in the /Application directory. Tested on macOS High Sierra.

Quick and easy

After opening this way once you can simply double click to execute

• Right click the build-macos script in the build folder and choose open, then press open on the developer warning
• Follow on screen instructions

Terminal script with parameters

• Run ./build-macos keyboard:keymap:target
• You can replace either keyboard, keymap or target with "all" as a wildcard
• Optional switches are -v for verbose output and -c for continue on build error

Examples

• ./build-macos all
• ./build-macos -v ErgoTravel
• ./build-macos -c gherkin:default
• ./build-macos iris:default:left

Building from Linux

Follow the instructions here, then find your arduino avr installation (should be somewhere in /usr/share/arduino/hardware/) and replace the arduinoAvrPath variable in build-linux with yours.

Usage is the same as detailed in the windows and mac sections.

Need to flash the bootloader?

Follow the instructions on the Flashing the Bootloader page for the Adafruit nRF52 Feather. You will need a j-link and connect it to the SWD lines of the hardware.

Want to help?

Contact /u/jpconstantineau on reddit.

https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_nRF52_Arduino

Credits

The firmware uses the same Arduino Core as the Adafruit nRF52 Feather Boards

The Adafruit NRF52 Arduino Core is based on Arduino-nRF5 by Sandeep Mistry, which in turn is based on the Arduino SAMD Core.

The following tools are used:

• Arduino IDE as the Editing Environment
• GCC ARM Embedded as the compiler
• Nordic's nrfutil 0.5.2 for flashing the firmware by serial interface
• J-Link for flashing the bootloader by SWD interface