Hobby Electronics Launches Low-Cost Extended-Range Nordic nRF52840 Bluetooth 5 Development Board
Board combines the nRF52840 with a Skyworks Solutions RFX2401C to boost effective transmission and reception range.
Bulgaria-based Hobby Electronics has launched a development board built around Nordic Semi's nRF52840 system-on-chip — and boasting an on-board Skyworks Solutions RFX2401C power amplifier/low-noise amplifier (PA/LNA) to boost its maximum range.
"[The board's] design is made to extend the nRF52840 range with RFX2401C PA/LNA chip," its creator explains. "[The] nRF52840 Bluetooth 5 Dev Board can be used for prototyping/development or to be used directly in a project. [The] board can be interfaced via SWD pins in the middle or via micro-USB connector. Comes with pre-loaded Adafruit nRF52840 bootloader."
The Nordic Semi nRF52840 system-on-chip at the heart of the board offers a single-core Arm Cortex-M4 processor running at 64MHz with 256kB of RAM and 1MB of flash memory. Its radio hardware supports Bluetooth 5, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Bluetooth Mesh, Zigbee, 802.15.4, ANT, and 2.4GHz operation, while its antenna connection is selectable between a PCB antenna designed into the board or an external SMA antenna by moving a 0-Ohm resistor.
The board's design includes a 3.3V regulator with 600mA output, 15 user-accessible general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, plus two pins hard-wired to control the receive and transmit pins of the radio.
The board is now available from Hobby Electronics' Tindie store at $20.
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